


Wandering Stars - Triple Conjunction

by auberus, lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series, Roads of Heaven - Melissa Scott
Genre: Crossover, Immortals in Space, M/M, Pirates, Pre-Canon, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:24:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auberus/pseuds/auberus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos stows away on <em>Sun-Treader</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wandering Stars - Triple Conjunction

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the 2012 Con*Strict zine.
> 
> Thanks go to Athena, Jay, Morgynleri and Candygramme for encouragement and beta input. The story is vastly better for your help.
> 
> This story takes place pre-Five-Twelfths of Heaven. It was originally intended to be a short and amusing romp. The characters had other ideas.

* * *

Athos Maria was a pretty planet, Denis thought as he leaned back against the railing of the balcony bar, ostensibly watching the ebb and flow of the waves below. Still pretty, despite the red flash of Hegemonic uniform leavening the crowds, and the raw stone of the new inspection-hall. The men at the table in the corner of his eye still had their heads close together, but no longer had the air of furtive dealing, Business undoubtably finished with, then, He wished Luomi would appear and let him get their business concluded.

"One last thing to carry, hand delivery to the Master of Revels in Chrysos on Castax. I'll make it worth your while," Luomi'd said, and paid the extra day-fee on the docking shed, as well as the penalty for re-scheduling their departure on short notice. They could use the money, and truth to tell, Denis didn't mind another few hours rest before taking on the double tasks of pilot as well as Captain. Idly, he spun his Captain's medallion on it's sturdy chain. It caught the light of the lowering sun, flashing briefly in his eyes. They were well rid of Tathir Corbin, the most recently departed of a series of make-do pilots, but it didn't make flying duo any easier, especially on a planet where Julie was restricted to the Pale. Denis missed his solid presence at the table.

The not-quite-furtive pair at the other table shoved back their chairs and rose to leave. With a practiced eye, Denis noticed that they walked with a careful distance from each other, but not actually apart. No doubt there were safely anonymous hostel room-keys in those fashionable pockets. They were pretty too, but not really his type. He watched them leave, glad to see Luomi nodding politely as he crossed their paths. Had he been waiting for them? Denis wouldn't put it past the man.

"Captain Balthasar, a pleasure to see you." Luomi settled his deceptively soft bulk into the chair next to Denis, the one Julie would have taken had he been there. "And where is your so-excellent Engineer? Are we not to have the pleasure of his company as well?"

Julie's current papers wouldn't pass the new inspection wards. Luomi undoubtably guessed that. Denis kept his smile even. "He is tending to the ship; we lift at second moonset." Not soon enough, in other words, but engineers were notorious for wanting to make last-minute adjustments to the cargo baffling and the harmoniums. Let Luomi think what he would. Let any potential listeners think what they would. This was actually a clean cargo for once. With the possible exception of the item Luomi was delaying them over.

Luomi smiled, and laid a carefully casual hand too close to Denis's. Citrine sparkled on expensive rings in the lowering light. "No need for you to return immediately, however, there is all the night before you are away." His lips were wet, and the freshening breeze brought the scent of expensive chypre hair-oil.

Denis made his hand stay still, abruptly aware of the weight of the two-shot heylin in his sleeve, the hardness of the glassine blade in his boot. He could almost hear Julie's warm voice rumbling a warning to  'ware riot. (Athos Maria was not Delos, and the Hegemony punished where the Rusadir had merely frowned and looked away. And while Luomi was their factor here, he was not Nnamdi, and likely would never have his influence, much less his charm. Denis smiled in return, suddenly glad of Tathir's absence. "I regret that I must decline. We are short a pilot, and you did say the message was of some urgency. Pilot's duty, I'm afraid." Not that the Road of Hare and Tortoise was complicated, or even long, but a merchant factor would know nothing of the Pilot's Art, except that it was Art.

"Surely you can stop for dinner?" Luomi made one more attempt to press his suit, his thigh warm and hard against Denis's own. The stars were beginning to come out overhead, though the horizon was still bright.

Heat pooled warm in his belly, and for a moment Denis almost considered it. He had certainly bedded worse, and it had been a long time. Julie wouldn't approve, and it wouldn't be a good move business-wise either. Realistically, Luomi was unlikely to last long as a factor under the Hegemony, especially if he was always this obvious. Denis let a little reluctance show as he shifted away. "I really must be getting back to the ship. I am sorry."

Luomi sighed and straightened in his chair. "Well, perhaps next time." He pulled a thin metal envelope from the breast of his coat. The faint blue shimmer of a tamper-seal edged the joins. Another paper envelope joined it on the table, hiding the glow. "Everything you need is there, as we agreed, and Vincit will pay the other half on delivery."

"A pleasure to do business with you, Sieur. Perhaps next time indeed." Denis tucked the items into his own inner pocket, merchants concluding a deal, nothing furtive or scandalous about it. He stood and nodded politely. "Enjoy your evening." He left the bar not looking back, feeling Luomi's eyes on him until he was well inside the arcade. Then he set his steps briskly back to the Pale, _Sun-Treader_ , and Julie. He did not notice the speculative hazel glance and lithe dark figure that eeled through the crowds as he made his way down the wide thoroughfare.

Methos moved carefully through the crowd, keeping the trader in sight while doing his best to keep anyone with authority from catching a clear look at his face.  The Hegemony's control over this planet was relatively new, and was correspondingly harsh as they tried to hammer the planet's culture into the strict lines of their own. 

He hadn't intended to make landfall in Hegemony-controlled territory -- had in fact planned to avoid it for the next few centuries at the least -- but an emergency on the last ship he'd bought passage on had meant a forced landing -- and had put him in the uncomfortable position of needing to get off-planet without attracting any official attention.  A week at the spaceport, observing, had proven that stowing away was the only viable option, and he'd been looking for a ship on which to do so for the past two days.  He was pretty sure he'd found one, but it would do him no good if he happened to get grabbed by an overzealous official before he could get to said transport.

Soon enough, the man he was following relaxed infinitesimally; the easing in the tense line of shoulder that meant home was in sight.  Methos was pleased to see that the man's path had led them to the medium-sized, less expensive sheds, and his gaze was fixed on a half-and-half; the ship, designed for smuggling, would have a number of places in which he could hide without disturbing its operation.  Hanging back, he waited until his target had entered the hatch, then slipped on board after him.

The itch between Denis's shoulder blades that usually meant he was being watched or followed was in good working order. Unfortunately, since there were alert soldiers at most of the intersections and newly-installed Watchers in the plazas, even though he took a carefully public (and somewhat circuitous) route, and kept his eyes open and senses alert for anyone actually following him, Denis couldn't decide if there was any specific threat.

Once he reached the actual bounds of the Pale and the relative comfort of star-traveller's coine lilting in his ears, Denis relaxed a little. The Pale was busy but not frantic, and reassuringly ordinary. The port was small enough that even the cheaper docking sheds were easy to get to, just off one of the segments of main traffic that ringed both port and Pale.

The bells on the felt curtains baffling the keel from errant, damaging disharmony chimed faintly as he slipped through the flap. "Yo, Julie!"

"You are back early." There was amusement in Julie's deep voice. "We're all stowed. The greenet and the cloth actually fit all in the forward hold, so they balance each other out, and will give you some extra baffling."

"Good. I have the package." Habit more than anything kept Denis silent about Luomi's other offer. "Did the tug confirmation come through yet?"

"Yes, just a few minutes ago. I was about to send the acknowledgement. Now you can do your Captainly duty." 

There was affection in the big man's voice that warmed Denis, and he followed Julie's large shape through the commons to the bridge. "I'll do that. Are the stores onboard yet?"

"Not quite. Yancy forgot the caff, and I sent him back for it. But he should be along before curfew."

"Can't fly without caff, that's sure. I'll leave the hatch unsealed, then."

Methos slid through the ship's twisting passageways, searching for a place far enough from the main harmonium that his presence wouldn't disturb its function.  He found one that suited his needs quickly enough, and tucked himself and his bag away inside of it, using his sword to prop the door shut from the inside. It wouldn't do to have anyone open it accidentally.

Sitting down and leaning back against the wall, he settled himself and waited for take-off.

* * *

"The Star-Follower's Handbook" had the best drawing for the Road Denis planned to take them by, so he collected the volume from his cabin and took it with him to the control room. It had been long enough since he had flown it that refreshing his memory would be a good idea.

As he paged through the starbook to find the right entry he made a note to stop in at the Pilot's Guild Charthouse on Castax and get updates for all of his books.  He sighed, looking at the drawing for the Road of the Hare and Tortoise. He'd forgotten how fiddly and tiresome it was -- all hurry up and wait. It wouldn't hurt to put out feelers for a new pilot at the Guild as well. But they had to get there first. He let his mind settle into the semi-trance necessary to internalize the voidmarks, going only deep enough for proper visualization.

Yancy should be showing up soon, and there were always last-minute things that fell to the Captain to answer. The communications channel had only the usual quiet chatter, but Denis left it open and one ear half-listening out of long habit. There were the standard weather and harmonic advisories, and the increasingly (and depressingly) familiar 'suspicious person sought, if seen report' bulletins. Denis had long since decided that should he ever encounter one of the people the Hegemony sought he was far more likely to offer them sanctuary than to turn them in. It was never the truly dangerous criminals that were hounded over the public channels, and often enough their offenses were things that in the Fringe were commonplace, unremarked and more to the point, perfectly legal and acceptable. Like being from Kesse, or preferring one's own gender, or "... trafficking in the Mechanical Arts, and resisting the Proctors upon routine inspection." That was an accusation not often heard. Denis raised his eyebrows and actually listened. The charge of resisting inspection was typical, but it had been many years since Denis had heard anyone accused of being a Mechanic.

There was little else of interest in the announcement, not even a good description. Tall, slender, fair-skinned, dark-haired males in tunic-and-leggings were hardly thin on the ground.  "Last seen in the vicinity of the Starport. If seen, report to the nearest authority, do not attempt to apprehend." Denis wished him luck. If he actually made it to the port and the Pale it was more than likely that he would be able to escape entirely.

He turned his attention back to the drawing and the voidmarks, giving a final mental push to lock in the transition from plod to sprint and back again in the middle of the road. 

Distantly, Denis heard the sweet chime of the bells on the baffle-curtains. Before he could put aside the book and stand up, Julie had opened the hatch. Yancy with the last of their supplies, undoubtably. He glanced at the chrono. Still two hours before the tug was due. Good. that meant he could get a nap. He tucked the starbook into the couch-pocket and set the back to full recline. No point in going to his cabin for so short a time.

* * *

He'd been afraid of a good many things during his nearly ten thousand years, but he couldn't think of anything that made his skin crawl like the idea of being in the hands of the Magi under the Hegemony.  Permanent death would be very nearly preferable.  In comparison, the worst dictators of the twentieth century had been nasty little boys pulling off flies' wings, and all the horrors of those years were nothing more than a series of minor inconveniences.

Methos reached out a hand in the darkness until his fingers encountered the familiar bulk of his pack.  Most of his possessions were stored away, behind doors and locks made with now-despised technology made useful by its taboo nature, and though the pack held precious little, for millennia he'd made do with even less.  Still, its presence was reassuring -- though not as reassuring as the weight of his sword, tucked into a pocket-of-holding that defied the laws of physics he had known on Earth, an expensive bit of folded space made possible by the New Science.

Not that a sword would do him much good against the Hegemony or its agents.  Methos sighed and opened his eyes again.  He'd have liked to sleep, but knew that there was no way he would do so until they were off-planet.

Julian Chase Mago refilled the caff-pot reservoir and set it brewing. Denis had not had nearly enough sleep this planetfall, and nap or no would need all the energy he could get. Julie had been surprised for a moment to see him back from the meeting with Luomi so quickly, but only for a moment. Denis might be as irritatingly free of scruples as he was reticent of words, but he was never one to put the very small number of people and things he really cared about to unnecessary risk, and he had a very finely-honed instinct for danger. Julie just wished he wouldn't run quite so close to the line occasionally. Not that he could truly complain -- after all, if Denis hadn't been as good at taking risks as he was, Julie would in all likelihood be dead or geas-bound to the Hegemony. Kesse had fought too hard against the invaders, and now the planet of his birth was no longer home to its people, though at least the planet was still there, not reduced to rubble and discord by the siege engines that were the Hegemony's most fearsome weapons.

He rubbed at his beard as the pot brewed. If Julie were honest with himself, it wasn't even that Denis had returned so quickly that was the surprise, but how relieved Julie himself had been. There was something about this trip that was making him uneasy, on edge, and it wasn't (or wasn't just) the oppressive hand of the conquerer. Still, he would be very glad to be on their way. The caff was done. Julie poured a mug and dolloped in sweetener. Barbaric to adulterate good bean that way, but that was how Denis liked it.

He carried the mug to the control room and set it in the space between the main board and the musonar display. Denis was still asleep, tired enough that Julie's quiet entrance had not woken him. Without the fierce animation of Denis's waking spirit, he looked almost absurdly vulnerable, a head shorter and massing at most two thirds of Julie's own broad and muscled frame. No question as to who was the more dangerous man, though Julie knew that hawk face and sharp tongue masked both a formidable intelligence and a surprising depth of feeling. Julie shook his thoughts back in order. They had a launch to make.

"Denis?" Julie touched his shoulder lightly, and Denis flinched awake. "Tug is due in thirty. Caff is on the console there. Everything is green to go."

"Thank you, Julie." Denis sat up & scrubbed at his face with his hands, then reached for the mug. He breathed in the aromatic steam with appreciation, curling his perpetually cold fingers around the warm ceramic. Julie stepped back, not looking at the pale flash that was the nape of Denis's neck, grey-brown wisps of hair curling against the dark tunic, framing the gap between cloth and skin.

"There's more caff in the pot. Everything else is stowed. I'll be starting the pre-launch sequence in ten." Julie reached the door and turned back to see Denis put the mug down & swing his legs off the couch, working the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Tow-boss is Tanry, and he says we're first up."

Denis smiled. "Good. I want off this planet."

The tow to the launch-table was smooth, and Julie's deft hand on the harmonium kept the slowly swelling music from quite tipping over into dissonance. Denis tried to will away the almost-headache that the competing harmonies of ship, tug and building launch-beam always caused, grateful again for Julie's thoughtfulness and skill. Most engineers didn't bother with pre-launch sequences for a ship as small as _Sun-Treader_ , going straight from the near-silence of a keel at rest into the complex burst of music that lifted the keel and the ship balanced on it from the cradle and pushed against the focused note of the launch-beam and the harmonies of the planetary music. But Julie was certainly not 'most engineers', not by any definition.

The sky was just beginning to lighten after the short night of summer, stars fading on the horizon but still bright overhead, reflected in the Ficinan model as rings and dots and swaths of light and color. Both moons were below the horizon, and their line of departure was clear of interference. The tug had put them precisely on coordinates, and was a swiftly receding shape in the left-most screen. Denis thumbed on the speaker. "Athos Control, DRV _Sun-Treader_ ready to lift."

"Go ahead, _Sun-Treader_ , you are cleared for launch. Good voyage." The cheerful voice sounded remarkably sincere.

"Thank you Athos Control." He toggled the intercom. "First sequence Julie."

"Coming on ... now." Julie's deep voice was swallowed in the rising swell of sound, and the ship shuddered. As always, for a moment it seemed as if the bright notes of the harmonium would shake him apart before the ship flew, but as the music grew, the vibration steadied, and _Sun-Treader_ came free of the cradle and lifted up and away from the mundane, rising into the sky. His screens flashed and settled, presets engaging as the ground-interference faded. Data scrolled, and the keys under his fingers came alive. The intricate system harmonies wove in his senses, and for long minutes there was nothing but the duet: Julie playing the harmonium for lift and power, Denis the secondaries for fine navigation and velocity.

" _Sun-Treader_ , this is Athos Control. Liftoff successful, and I show your course true on projection. You should be clear of planetary influences in 12 minutes, solar and system in five hours. You'll want to watch for the comet at zed-997-epsilon, shortly before you leave the system."

"This is _Sun-Treader_. I copy projection. Thanks for the warning." Denis flicked off the com-switch, silencing the faint hiss of static. Athos Maria was behind them. A few minutes more and they would be free of the outer edges of her music. All the boards were green, screens clear, the lines of plotted, projected and actual course lying easily atop each other. He could feel it when the ship moved beyond the last wisp of color in the model, and the true line of celestial harmony came clear. He touched a key, feather light, and _Sun-Treader_ steadied precisely on course, the planetary and velocity readings winking out and the last tremble fading as Julie modulated in the next sequence. They were good for almost four hours now, the ship nearly flying herself, keel singing soft and strong. 

"System-celestial score locked and holding, Denis. All green. Purgatory sequence is on preset-preliminary. Want me to come up and spell you for a bit?" 

Denis was too unsettled to nap any more, though he did let Julie give him a break from watching the slowly changing view on the main screen. Well before it was necessary he was back on the bridge, alternately refreshing his mental image of the Road and putting the cargo and trade files into finicking order.

Finally, Denis set the secondary board to the in-system parameters for Castax, ready for when they came out of Purgatory. (It was one of the things he liked least about running with just the two of them, those few minutes flying blind as he went from control room to the pilot's bridge. Going out was not the problem, but coming into a system was always chancy. There was the simple repeater-board up there, but it was very limited.) The ladder-rungs were just beginning to feel sticky with the beginnings of Purgatory.

The repeater-board was live, everything still green. "I'm at the wheel, Julie," he said as he snugged his feet into the coaming-depressions and toggled the wheel-lock off. He took a deep breath, shoving everything that wasn't the Road and his ship-awareness to the back of his mind with practiced effort. _In hydraulis…_ "Ready for the upper register."

"Switching over ... now." Julie's voice was a steady line. 

The keelsong changed, gaining depth and complexity, notes the human ear could only almost hear. As always it was so beautiful it hurt, and Denis put that away too. The 12th of Heaven was coming up fast, the bulkheads shimmering, going translucent, and the fixed rings of fire that were the distant stars shone with eerie stillness. He'd forgotten his gloves, and the bones of his hands gleamed through his skin. The wheel moved smoothly under his fingers, and he focussed outward, seeking the voidmarks.

"I have the con." They were past the twelfth of heaven, well into Purgatory. The stylized landscape of the Road sprang clearly into view as soon as he looked out with Pilot's sight. The path was a series of curves and bumps, with deceptive straight branches that looked like shortcuts but weren't. He lined the keel up on the center of the path, avoiding the drooping branches of the trees along side, and paced the dark shape that was the turtle. The ship felt heavy, though they were if anything closer to Heaven than usual, and the wheel took more concentration to keep precisely on track. "Julie?" he called out over the headset when the odd perception continued "What are your strain-gauges showing?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary on the envelope-gauge. The keel's fine; the harmonium is drawing more power than usual, though. And the cargo-environment gauge is either not working or there is something very strange in one of those star-crates. You didn't forget to tell me about one of your deals, I hope." There was laughter in Julie's voice, but it didn't disguise the note of real question.

"No." Denis focussed on making the turn from the serpentine path to the straight that was the second half of the road, transitioning from turtle to hare.

Now it seemed as though the voidmarks were backlit, brighter than usual, the speed of the hare almost a hurtle, and the wheel trembled under his hands. If he didn't know better he would think they were on a dead road, or running companion with a Navy Dreadnought. Something was wrong. Something was on his ship that shouldn't be. "Julie, can you give me more power? just a little. And what do your oxygen/atmosphere sensors say? Could we have a stowaway?"

He couldn't leave the pilot's bridge, and Julie couldn't leave the harmonium, not with the ship barely under control. But the road was coming up on the end, the chequer-board field and the square that became a door that became the descent from purgatory.

The ever-present music intensified, and Julie's voice in his ear was concerned."The atmospherics aren't meant for that kind of use in Purgatory Denis, but the readings are off. And the strain-gauges are not right either. Not dangerous, but not right."

"I'm going to take her out on the edge of the system." The chequer-board was there on the apparent horizon, the black squares shimmering, the white dazzlingly bright. "Use the Wrath-wave sequence." The wheel was bucking under his hands. His knuckles would be white on the grips, were the skin visible; the old breaks burned.

"Ready with descent sequence."

"On my mark, and ..." As soon as the last row came clear, Denis forced himself to see the center black square as a door, looming large enough for _Sun-Treader_ , "Now, Julie!"

The music changed key, chords and notes shifting sharply, painfully. He threw the yoke hard into a dive, feeling the drop from Purgatory as a fall, seeing the stars of ordinary space appear for a moment before the un-tinctured-metal went opaque. He wrestled the wheel into neutral and threw the lock, leaving everything else live and slid down the ladder at speed. His headset was still on, and he could hear that Julie had the harmonium under control, even though _Sun-Treader_ was not happy at the abrupt fall from Purgatory. A quick look at the screens he had left set showed that he had indeed managed to bring them in at the very edge of the Castax system, and well out of the usual approach lanes. Well, if Castax Approach Control wanted to take issue, he'd come up with something to tell them. First he was going to find out what was on his ship.

* * *

Methos swore under his breath and braced himself as the ship jerked again.  His curses were mostly self-directed; he was too bloody close to the core of the ship, despite all his precautions.  He should have taken something larger, despite the risk -- anything was better than hard vacuum, over and over again, even the Hegemony -- but in his defense, it had been centuries since he'd been aboard a ship this small save as the pilot, and he'd never imagined that a passenger-capable ship would run without an inner environment baffle envelope. Usually only the small pure cargo-ships did that. He hadn't realized how strongly it would react to his Presence. 

He felt the ship motion change, shifting to what had to be something like system-ambient, as near to stopped in space as a ship got. That meant that someone would be coming to look for him momentarily, and he did his best to remember how 'harmless' was supposed to look.  Even a short time in Purgatory made it difficult to be anyone but himself, and that wasn't something he could afford.

Denis could move very quickly and quietly when he chose, and he knew every deckplate and rivet of his ship. Unfortunately, shipsuits didn't have pockets, or even belts, and he had not taken the time to open the arms-locker, so the heylin in his hand was the two-shot hideaway that he kept under the main console. The touchplate was hot under his thumb.

Commons was empty, the caffpot still warm, and the galley undisturbed. The forward cabin was likewise clear, even the air scrubbed clean of Tahir's presence. The doors to his and Julie's cabins were closed, but he checked them both anyway. That left the aft cabins and the cargo holds. He didn't need to look in Engineering, as nothing could have hidden there with Julie manning the harmonium.

Denis could tell from the faint vibrations under his feet and the almost-hum in his ears that Julie was using the harmonium at minimum power, just enough to keep them moving at the pace of the outermost orbiting debris. He was very good at making the ship blend into the system harmonics.

The cabin inconveniently tucked into the gap between the small hold and the tanks of ordinary water was his next target. They often used it as a storage space or for particularly delicate cargo, rarely for passengers. The door was shut, and when Denis put his hand to the lock-pad his fingertips tingled. It was active - latched from inside, though not locked. He took a breath and steeled himself. Who or whatever was in there had power, power that affected things in Purgatory, and who knew where else. But even Magi were subject to the effects of a bolt from a heylin. He hit the override on the door and and it slid open with an unexpected metallic clatter.

The footsteps paused outside his refuge, and even as the latch clicked and the door slid open, Methos was lifting his hands in the air, trying to look not only afraid, but harmless in the bargain.  It was a more difficult combination than most people realized; frightened men being in many cases the most dangerous of all.

As soon as the door opened, Methos realized that he'd made a critical mistake.  Light from the corridor flooded the darkness in which he'd been sitting for the past several hours, and he found himself blinking furiously, momentarily near-blind.  His discoverer was only a black outline. Methos couldn't even tell if the man was armed, so he held very, very still, and waited for his pupils to adjust to the light.  Slowly, the shape in the doorway resolved itself into a man in his middle years, with greying hair and a profile that resembled Methos' own to no small degree.

His eyes were wary, his features tense.  Methos could only imagine what his presence had done to the ship whilst they were in Purgatory, and he very much doubted that anyone on board would be feeling kindly disposed towards whoever caused such disturbance, however unintentionally.

The cabin was dark, and the light from the passageway spilled in to reveal a man all angles, hands raised empty and placating. Denis's fingers tightened on the small heylin, and he could feel the incipient tremble in his wrists. He hated that strain made him shake. There was no suspicion of such weakness in the man before him, and there was that in his eyes that belied the appearance of harmlessness and fright.

Something glinted on the deck, and Denis spared a flick of his eyes to it. The thing looked very like a sword. A stowaway with a sword. Denis had no doubt at all that the man could use it. But it was on the deck, not in his hand. He decided to see how the man would play the scene, and spoke as if he took the apparent harmlessness at face value. "Who are you, and what are you doing on my ship?" He kept the heylin aimed in clear view.

"Hiding," Methos said, with a twitch of his lips that he couldn't quite repress.  "I needed a way off-planet in a hurry, and I really didn't feel like dealing with all the tiresome little formalities upon which the Hegemony insists."  He let just a hint of the strain he was under peek out, just enough to make his banter seem slightly brittle: a flood of words, covering up a world's worth of fear.  "I'm Adan Dawes."  He started to reach out, as if to shake hands, then stopped himself.  It looked like reflex, but it wasn't.

"I can pay for passage," he said, voice lifting half an octave with the sentence, and let his glance drop to the heylin before looking back up at the man's face.

Denis narrowed his eyes. Oh this man was good. Very good indeed. Everything he said rang true, and probably was true as far as it went. Denis considered. There was obviously more to the story, but running from the Hegemony was more likely a positive than not. It certainly wasn't as though he and Julie were unused to that state. And more money couldn't hurt, though what the man thought he was buying needed to be determined. And there was still that sword. "Come out here where I can see you, Adan."

Methos got to his feet, not bothering to hide the stiffness that had accumulated whilst he'd been seated with his legs folded.  He cast one longing glance at his sword, but was certain that any move towards the blade would earn him a blast from that damned heylin.  He had no desire to give these people an object lesson as to why he was trying to avoid the Hegemony.  That ridiculous lie they cooked up to cover the reason for their interest would serve his purposes very nicely, if he judged his interlocutor's expressions correctly.  He was, unfortunately, an inch or so taller than the other man -- under the circumstances he would have preferred to have been shorter, less threatening -- and thanks to his time in Purgatory, it took him perhaps half a second to remember and recall the slump of Adan's spine and the way he hunched his shoulders up slightly when nervous, as if expecting a blow.  He wrapped his arms around himself as if cold, and looked at the ground.

Denis did not miss the stiffness with which Adan moved, or the momentary flash of straight spine and broad shoulders that melted into unassuming curves. Tall, but not as tall as Julie, and built on the same narrow lines as himself. His hair was as dark as the shadows, and his tunic and leggings were good quality without being ostentatious. Denis also noted that he carefully did not look at the sword on the deck. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You're the Mechanic they were looking for, aren't you." _And I was wishing you luck._ But what was a Mechanic doing with the kind of power that bent Purgatory to his presence? Delos had enough machines that Denis knew the disruption they caused, and it was nothing like what they had experienced.

Methos nodded, adding a slight wince. Mechanics weren't exactly welcome in this particular period of human history.  "Hence my desire to avoid leaving the planet the regular way."  And then, because Adan would ask, "How did you find me, anyway?  I thought I'd have to announce myself."  He shifted slightly from foot to foot.  "I wasn't looking forward to it, to be completely honest with you."

Denis could not stop the incredulous rise of his brows. "You almost throw my ship off the Road getting here, just from your presence, and you have to ask?"  Denis was certain it was the man himself, not the sword or any artifact he might have concealed in his small carry-sack, though he couldn't have said how he knew. The spark of anger that the challenge the man presented had dimmed flared up again. He could already feel the muscles of his back and neck winding tight, and he held his hands steady by force of will.

Methos' eyebrows went up involuntarily this time.  He'd no idea as to the extent of the disruption his presence had caused.

"Off the -- that's not right.  I've piloted one of these hundreds of times and never had any problems.  I've no idea how to even start doing something like that!" It was disingenuous, but if he was to keep these people from realizing just how strange he was, he had to appear not to know himself.  Besides, the pretense of ignorance would cut down on awkward questions.  the bit about having flown before, though, he dropped in deliberately.  Methos was fairly sure that the only way he'd be able to get anywhere safely on this ship was if he was at the helm.  _This is the last bloody time I get on something this small, especially one of these._

The surprise was genuine; the rest of it Denis was not so sure of. If he was a pilot (and that he had made the trip un-drugged and un-disoriented argued that he was indeed not unfamiliar with flying as some kind of working crew) how could he not have been aware? 

" _Sun-Treader_ is not a merchant-ship" Denis said tightly. _And if you were Wrath-of-God I would know you. Half-and-halfs are not that common. But if he_ is _a pilot…_

With something of an effort, Denis smiled and made his own demeanor a little less harsh. "A pilot, you say. Let's continue this in the common room. I can certainly use some caff, and I expect you can too." Denis lowered the heylin, gesturing down the passage. His hand was on the lockplate, and as soon as Adan cleared the doorway, he closed and locked the cabin. "Your things will be perfectly safe there."

As the door swung shut, Methos had to force himself not to throw himself at it.  He could get through that lock if he had to, but the sensation of having his sword on the other side of a locked door was distinctly unpleasant.  It made the nervous tension radiating from him even more genuine than it might otherwise have been.

Denis had some sympathy with the man's flinch as the door sealed, and liked him the better for it. His own smile was less forced and he motioned Adan down the passage. Certainly the man was easy on the eyes. Not that that made him any less potentially dangerous, but danger had never stopped Denis. 

As they passed the door to Engineering, he called out "Julie, will the tuning hold for a few minutes?"

Julie answered promptly. "She'll hold for at least an hour. I assume you located the problem?" The door slid wide, and Julie stepped over the coaming. His own brows rose, and the look he gave Denis was the familiar mix of 'I don't believe this' and 'what have you gotten us into now' with an undertone of genuine worry.

"Yup. Julie, meet Adan Dawes, stowaway and Mechanic. Adan, Julian Chase Mago, engineer. I'm Denis Balthasar."

"Er -- it's a pleasure?" Methos said, shrugging helplessly.  The engineer was a big man, much larger than Balthasar, both taller and broader than Methos himself. The neat dark beard emphasized rather than disguising the strength of his jaw, and the general sense of solidity he possessed. "And I'm not sure it counts as stowing away when one intends from the beginning of the venture to pay the fare for one's passage."  It was an almost physical effort not to look back over his shoulder towards his absent sword.  He felt naked without it, despite being far from unarmed, and hardly helpless even if he were.

 _It would be very easy to like this man,_ Denis thought as he led the way into the commons. Julie was a reassuring presence behind the newcomer, and Denis allowed himself to relax a little. _Be honest with yourself, you like that there is more to him than meets the eye, but don't get too pleased with yourself just because you pulled that trick with the door. Unarmed is not helpless, and if he is as much like you as you think he is, he isn't without resources. He probably isn't even unarmed. I wouldn't be._

"I haven't decided if we're taking passengers this trip. What do you think, Julie?"

The larger of the two men reminded Methos very vaguely of Silas, though he was clearly more intelligent.  There was something there that was similar, and it was almost a shock to realize that he hasn't thought about his brothers in over a century.  Any of them.  He put the thought aside and waited for Julie's answer.  The name was, to Methos, at any rate, wildly inappropriate for someone with a beard like that one.  They might be expecting him to beg -- and if it came down to being thrown out the airlock, he bloody well would, and explain what they're condemning him to in the bargain.  That particular fate was the worst nightmare of this age.  He still woke up screaming sometimes, half-smothered by the combined weight of memory and dream.  Even now, the horror of it was close enough that the unspoken threat of being thrown into hard vacuum was making his chest ache in anticipation.  He forced himself to unclench his fists, to open his hands; to breathe, and to hide the effort it was all costing him.

Julie threw a minatory look at Denis, who grinned unrepentantly back. They had both picked up on Adan's sudden tension, the careful way he opened his hands and placed them flat on the table.

"He's already here." Julie said evenly. "I say we should listen to his offer."

The engineer turned to the galley and pulled down three mugs, filling them from the caff spigot. Denis settled himself in something that resembled a sprawl but wasn't in the hammock-chair. Julie poured the sweetener in one mug and turned to where Adan had settled somewhat gingerly in the basket chair that had been Tathir's. "How do you like your caff?"

"Black is fine," Methos said, still trying to decide if he'd rather be standing.  He eventually decided that he would, but that it wouldn't look right, more's the pity.  "I'll pay whatever your usual fare is, plus half again for the inconvenience."  _And I'll stay as far to the outside of the ship as possible, and hope to every god I've ever known that my presence doesn't throw us off the Road._

Julie brought the mug over to Adan, and gave him an almost-smile. "Drink up, plenty more in the pot."

Denis curled his fingers around his own mug, letting the solid warmth still the remaining trembles. "Why Castax? Or did you care about where as long as it was 'away'?" _And why_ Sun-Treader _? Or would any ship have done?_ But asking that would give far too much away.

"Not particularly," Methos admitted, taking a sip of the caff.  It was hot enough to burn his tongue, but the pain faded almost as soon as it registered.  The caff itself was surprisingly good; good enough that he was glad he'd decided to take it black.  "This really isn't bad, by the way," he said, gesturing with the mug before taking another swallow.  "No, I just want to get somewhere beyond the Hegemony's reach.  I have no desire to fall into their hands."  He knew even as he spoke that he'd been just a little too emphatic.  To counter, he shrugged lightly and leaned back in his chair, trying to conceal the nervous tension running through him like Quickening-fire.

There was very real fear coloring Dawes's voice, and not just of the Hegemony. Something about the ship itself, or the situation he was in was contributing. He hadn't even winced at what Denis knew to be very hot caff indeed. Denis leaned back in his own chair, thinking.

Julie picked up the conversational thread. "We're not all that fond of the Hegemony ourselves, so that's understandable." He was still standing, pulling out bread and sandwich makings. "Vat-protein or vegetable?" 

Julie wished their unexpected passenger would relax a little. Denis was being remarkably restrained, all things considered, and really, the worst that was likely to happen to Adan was being charged a very high fee and being left to fend for himself once they off-loaded him on Castax. But Denis was going to want more information out of him, and wound this tightly, Adan wasn't likely to be very informative. "Or I could put something hot on. We're at least eight hours out of Castax planetary space."

Methos shifted unconsciously in his seat.  The offer of food suggested that he wasn't about to be summarily thrown out the airlock, and accepting it really would be the thing to do.  "Vegetable is fine," he said, after a pause that was just a moment too long.  "Thank you."  He took a long breath, forcing his muscles to relax.  He'd feigned calm in much more dangerous situations, though admittedly none that frightened him so thoroughly.  The effort was only partially successful, but it was the best he could manage at the moment.

Denis spoke into the small silence,"Better stick with sandwiches for now, Julie." Food was a good idea, and obviously the prospect of it had served to ease some of their unexpected guest's fears. "You said you are a pilot. What school?"

"None," Methos admitted. He had no way of knowing when or where the two of them had trained, and had no intention of letting them catch him in a lie.  "I've spent nearly twenty years on one ship or another; I don't really remember when I started learning how to fly."  All of which was true, though the implications were not.  Twenty years was most of Adan's life, after all.  He took another swallow of caff, though it hadn't cooled very noticeably.

Denis found himself nodding. He'd learned his own early piloting skills that way. Before Wrath-of-God had co-opted him off of rickety old _Seraphim_. That had been a long time ago, not just in years. He'd learned a lot of things from Gether, only some of them directly related to piloting or running a ship. In the warm light of the commons, Adan looked much younger than he had in the cabin, and there was still the question of the sword, not to mention whatever it was about him that had such weight and presence in Purgatory. What was the likelihood that Adan's first captain had pushed him into piloting just to deal with that whatever it was? 

Denis shifted in his chair, abruptly aware that he was still wearing his shipsuit. They were magus-made to be opaque to the revealing nature of Purgatory, just as the hull of the pilot's bridge was made to be completely transparent, but they were snuggly form-fitting, leaving little to the imagination as far as shape went. Certainly not modest as most planet-bound folk understood. He pushed aside the sudden visual speculation of what Adan would look like in one. Now was emphatically not the time for that kind of thinking.

Adan's words still rang true as Denis replayed them in his mind, though there would be more to the tale than that, just as there was to his own. "There's a lot of trade on Castax, in the Fringe."

Methos nodded in agreement.  "I've been to Castax before.  Hopefully, I'll be able to get work piloting a ship with no plans to go anywhere near Hegemony-controlled space."  He forced a smile.  "That is, if you've decided against leaving me to the mercies of hard vacuum."  Just saying it was enough to bring old memories flooding back, fast and strong enough that the present threatened to slip away from him.  He fixed his gaze on the caff in his mug, wrapping his hand around the ceramic hard enough that the heat of it would leave blisters for a few moments when he let go.  With a wrench that felt almost physical, he jerked his mind away from the waiting stream of memory and forced himself to look up at Balthasar and Chase Mago.  If they were still in an airlock frame of mind, the next step was the unvarnished truth.  Neither of them seemed the sort to condemn a man to the torture of continued death and resurrection, though Methos wouldn't put it past them to deal with an inconvenience in what is, for a mortal, not a terribly inhumane death.

Julie turned from the galley, pure shock on his face.

Denis shuddered, his fingers going white on his own mug as he gripped it two-handed like a life-line. He had his own nightmares of suffocation, of the airless eerie silence of a hull-torn ship open to space. If Adan had been fearing they would space him, no wonder he was practically rigid with terror. Denis swallowed, and when he spoke it was with the flatness of extreme control. "I would not space a homunculus belonging to the Hegemon himself, much less a person."

Julie had abandoned his sandwiches, and did not miss the way Adan's hands trembled (Denis's hands were too often the only way Julie could read _him_ ) nor the blotchy color when he raised them to his face. The cups had been hot enough to burn. "Damn it Denis, I thought you said the temperature setting had been _fixed_ " He reached out to catch Adan's hands, fumbling for the cold-pack of protein slices.

Maybe it was relief; maybe it was fatigue.  Either way, it took three or four long seconds before Methos realized what Chase Mago was doing and jerked his hands back -- but he could tell from the look on the big man's face that those few seconds were more than enough.  He folded his hands together, knowing even as he did that it was much too little, and far too late.

"Narfi told me he had." Denis's voice was thin in Julie's ears, revealing much more strain than he usually allowed. The red staining Adan's palms had vanished before his gaze, the burn healing. Out of the corner of his eye Julie saw Denis reach for the cold-pack and curl his own abused fingers around it. That healing had not been the Art of a healer-magus. Not without any tools or gestures or words. "What are you?" he asked gently.

Methos closed his eyes for a long moment, desperately wishing that either Balthasar or Chase Mago were stupid enough to fall for the 'you must have been mistaken' line.  Neither of them even came close, though.  He opened his eyes, not meeting either man's gaze. Instead, he looked down at his now-uninjured hands.  "I'm Immortal," he admitted after a long moment.

"Immortal." It was too outrageous not to be true. Julie sat heavily in the cushion-chair. "The Magi would..." He trailed off, not wanting to take that thought any further.

"And whatever it is that does that" Denis pointed his chin at Adan's hands, "that makes you immortal, is what affected the voidmarks and the ship."

Julie glanced from Denis to Adan, seeing nearly identical shadows under their eyes, recognizing in Denis the tightness that hid pain, and the memory of pain. The same stresses seemed to mark Adan's face, and Julie could not but imagine what 'immortal' might mean in airless space. With forced lightness, the engineer said "I can see why you would want to avoid the Hegemony, certainly."

Methos' smile was bleak, and much more his own expression than Adan's.  "I'd almost rather go out the airlock than into their hands," he says.  "Almost."  Looking at Denis, he apologized, "I really didn't know the kind of effect I'd have on the ship.  I am truly sorry about that."

Denis nodded. "Half-and-halfs have their advantages, but stress-resistance isn't one of them." Denis put down the cold pack and levered himself to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his own hands. "And we run without the baffle-envelope unless the cargo requires it. Which I'm sure didn't help." He started assembling the sandwiches Julie had been working on. "We're no friends to the Hegemony." 

"Also good to know," Methos said dryly.  He got to his feet and took the bread out of Balthasar's hands.  "I'll do that in a moment, but I'd like to look at those burns of yours first."  He paused before reaching for Denis's hands.  "May I?  I used to be a doctor, and I assure you, I'm still fully trained."

It was on Denis's tongue to refuse, and he had already almost reflexively curled his fingers and tucked his hands close, but Julie spoke first. "Good idea. I'll go get the first aid kit."

Despite the years he and Julie had been working together, Denis still wasn't used to Julie's uncomplicated caring, but he was far too tired to fight it, especially when he did not actually want to. Mouth tight, he sat back down and made himself relax his fingers, trying not to flinch at Adan's gentle touch.

Methos couldn't tell if it was a general dislike of being touched that had Balthasar jumpy, or if it was that the man didn't want to be touched by _him_.  Some people reacted badly to the concept of Immortality.  

If Balthasar happened to be one of them, it would complicate things.  "It's all right," Methos said as he took Denis's hands in his own.  "It's been less than a century since I last went to medical school.  Everything's still fairly fresh.  Besides, these aren't that bad.  The two of you could have dealt with them on your own.  The real difficulty, I think, will be in keeping you from using your hands until they've had a chance to heal."  The blisters looked painful and would need to be drained, but Methos wasn't going to try that until Chase Mago came back.

He studied Balthasar carefully from under his lashes, trying to figure out what, precisely, was bothering the man, but Balthasar was nearly as good at inscrutability as was Methos himself.

Adan's hands were cool, gentle, and obviously skilled.  Probably not a good idea to ask him how old he was, even though the unlined skin and thick, un-silvered hair reminded Denis of the grey in his own hair, and made him once again physically self-conscious. To distract himself from feeling vulnerable, Denis spoke abruptly, almost defiantly, making himself look the man in the eye. "'Last went to medical school' implies you've studied the healing arts more than once."

Methos smiled, realizing as he did so that it was the first time he'd smiled in nearly a week.  "Oh, yes.  I tend to go back to medicine almost as frequently as I take to academia.  I'd tell you when I first studied the subject, but I doubt you'd credit it."

Distraction was good.

Denis leaned back in his chair, not thinking about the growing pain in his hands -- It had been a stupid thing to hold the cup so hard -- and found a ghost of a smile to quirk at their guest. "I'm from Delos, I can credit quite a lot,"  he said.

Balthasar's hands were warm beneath Methos' fingers, and that near-smile echoed brightly in Methos' chest. He found himself more than a little reluctant to let go of the other man's hands, but did anyway, rising and going to the sink.  A cursory inspection of the various cupboards yielded a basin, and he filled it with hot water, grabbing a bulb of soap and a clean washcloth before returning to the table.

"As for being able to credit a lot," he said, picking Denis's left hand up and beginning the necessary process of cleaning it, "the first time I studied medicine, the humoral theory was still being taught.  Actually, they were just beginning to teach it; it was at the time a major scientific achievement.  I can't remember if it was 1387 or 1388, though.  After a while, you tend to lose track of specific dates." He looked up at Denis through his lashes, half-smiling himself.  "One of the side effects of old age, I'm afraid."

Denis blinked, thoroughly distracted from the pain  -- though not from the gentle warmth of Adan's palm, cradling his hand, or the careful skill with which he wielded the cloth; that was something to think about later. New Age reckoning had ended before it reached the millennium, and none of the post-War calendars used those kinds of numbers. 1380-something in what calendar?

It wasn't until he saw the twinkle in Adan's eyes that Denis realized he'd said that last out loud.

"That would be 1387 C.E.," Methos said, a smile lingering at one corner of his mouth, "though at the time we called it Anno Domini." He released Denis's left hand and reached for the right, dipping a fresh corner of the washcloth into the basin. The thought of running his thumb over the sensitive skin at the inside of the man's wrist was a temptation, but Methos restrained himself; settled for tracing his fingertips across the back of Denis's hand in a touch that could pass for accidental but wasn't.

Denis shivered, his body responding to the accidental-on-purpose caress, his mind grappling with the impossible date. Anno Domini -- that was 'Year of the Lord' in one of the languages of the Magi. And C.E. was not just pre-War but pre-New Age. Pre-New Science. Almost pre-spaceflight."You're from Earth." he said, not letting his jaw sag open, however much it wanted to. "Earth itself. How old _are_ you?"  
   
Julie had reappeared with the kit, standing quietly in the shadow at the end of the passageway. Denis hasn't noticed him yet, was focused on Dawes. Rather than interrupt, Julie watched for a moment. He could see the way that Denis's body was reacting to the man, the slight leaning-toward that Denis himself likely hadn't noticed yet, or he wouldn't still be doing it. Julie wasn't quite sure how he felt about that, preferring to ignore it for the most part, beyond a fond exasperation at Delosian mores and Denis's own ability to make a complicated situation even more complicated. 

 "I'm honestly not sure any more," Methos admitted.  "The calendar's changed so many times that the best I can do is a rough guess."  He passed the cloth gently over Denis's injured palm, wanting the hand clean of any dirt before he drained the blisters.  A flicker of movement caught his attention, and he cursed himself silently for being so wrapped up in Balthasar as to have missed Chase Mago's return.  "Do you have the first aid kit?" he asked, turning his attention to the engineer, but continuing to hold onto Denis's hand.  "Some of these need to be drained before they're bandaged."

That rough guess as to his age could wait until he started actually draining said wounds.  Distraction would be at a premium, then.

Julie came in and put the box on the table, flipped the catches, opened the lid. The kit was neatly and efficiently arranged, and even contained a packet of spare emergency breathing masks. "Refilled it the stop before Athos Maria. Should be everything you need there."

"Thank you," Methos said.  Fortunately, there was a scalpel in the kit.  He wasn't happy about the idea of using one of his own knives, if only because neither Denis nor Chase Mago were likely to react well to the revelation that he was still heavily armed when they (presumably) thought him weaponless.  Removing the necessary supplies from the box, Methos set them out in a neat line before going to the sink to scrub his own hands as thoroughly as if he were in an operating theatre.  The routine was familiar enough to be almost comforting, and when he was done he shook his hands dry, then opened a packet of gauze and used the sterile material to finish the job.  There was a bottle of what appeared to be painkillers in the kit, and Methos shook a few out and put them on the table next to Denis, leaving the decision as to whether or not to take them up to him.

"This will probably hurt," he warned, picking up Denis's left hand and the scalpel.  He kept up a steady flow of speech as he worked, hoping the distraction will be of some help.  "At least now we know enough to be concerned about infection.  When I began practicing medicine, the idea of germs was an unknown."  He smiled faintly.  "Lots of things were, though.  We still thought the sun went around the earth, for one thing.  Galileo wouldn't come along for another three centuries, and wouldn't be widely believed for several more.  Last one; then we'll switch hands."  As soon as he was finished, he blotted Balthasar's hand with another piece of gauze, then wrapped it carefully.  He allowed himself to run one finger over the pulse-point at Denis's wrist, then reached for the man's other hand.  "Of course, by that time I was already old enough to have stopped counting individual centuries.  My best guess is that I've seen something like nine thousand years, give or take a few hundred."

Denis kept his breathing patterned and even, letting the man work, not thinking of how much his hands hurt. There was a topical numbing agent in the ointment that Adan spread on the raw skin, but it only cut the edge, and Denis couldn't -- wouldn't -- take a general painkiller. Not with an outer system to fly and an undoubtably irritated port authority to deal with once they got there. But the touch of Adan's hand was not just capable and clinical, and there was a glimmer under those long lashes that Denis recognized and wouldn't mind responding to. When Adan's words finally registered in Denis's mind, the number was simultaneously complete nonsense and straight truth.

It was as if he was a Road in his own person, solidity overlain with symbol, a Form made manifest in mundane space.

Julie founds words first, and Denis realized that he may well not have heard the first part of the conversation. "Nine _Thousand_ years? _Earth_ years?"

Methos nodded.  "Give or take a few centuries."  It had been a long time since anyone had known his real age; long enough that it was almost strange to talk about.  He kept his attention on Denis's hands, waiting for the inevitable onslaught of questions.

"How do you cope? Keep going?" Julie's voice held both wonder and sympathy in it, and almost as if it was part of the same thought, he continued, "Denis, I set the musonar to loud alert, and the tuning should hold in long approach for at least another hour." He picked up his own mug again, but did not sit, watching Adan and Denis both with wonder and astonishment, concern and puzzlement all reflected in his open features.

He was so much like Silas in that moment  that a grief centuries-old flared bright and painful in Methos' chest, and he had to busy himself with getting the gauze out of its packaging.  

"It's easier than dying," he said after a moment, reaching for Denis's hand again and beginning the process of wrapping it.  "Permanently dying, anyway; stick a knife in my heart and I'm indistinguishable from a corpse, at least for a little while."  He shook his head.  "Life is fascinating.  It changes so much -- and then again it stays exactly the same, both at once.  The people you meet today aren't that much different from the ones I knew three thousand years ago, or three thousand years before that.  The surroundings differ a bit," his amused glance took in the spaceship around them, "but the people don't change much."  He secured the last of the bandages in place.  "There.  Try not to use your hands.  I realize that's most likely a futile bit of instruction, but try." Methos lifted his eyes to Chase Mago's, looking the man full in the face.  "I suppose I keep going because underneath it all, I like _living_ , no matter how many times I've thought otherwise."

Julie nodded slowly, shadows deep in his eyes. Denis was reminded suddenly of the day when they had gotten the news of the fall of Kesse, and getting Julie drunk, monumentally drunk, to dull the first agony of that loss; of his own choices to live. There were shadows in Adan's face as well. For a long moment no-one spoke at all.

Then Denis spread his hands, admiring the tidy bandages, and deliberately smiled, the deceptively bright, utterly opaque grin of the survivor. "Very neat, thank you. And I shall leave the heavy lifting to Julie, at least until we get to Castax." The engineer refrained from rolling his eyes, and Denis went on, "Speaking of which, we'd best see about getting going. Adan, would you care to join me on the control deck?" The last was phrased as a question, but it was not actually a request.

"It would be a pleasure," Methos said gravely, discarding the odds and ends from the first aid kit and getting to his feet.

"Take these with you." Julie efficiently assembled two sandwiches and handed them to Adan. "I'll take care of things here."

Denis led the way up the short passage to the control room, pointing out the door to the currently empty cabin and the available facilities. 

Methos followed him obediently, storing away the relayed information with half an ear as he munched absentmindedly on one of the sandwiches.  The rest of his attention was occupied by the view. 

"If it's not prying, where are you headed after Castax?" he asked idly.  If they intended to avoid the Hegemony, it might not be a bad idea to ride along with them for a while, assuming some way could be worked out to prevent his Presence from running them off the Road.  Staying mobile might be the best way to keep the Hegemony away.  There were other reasons, but he didn't allow them to surface as far as the level of conscious thought.

"Either Delos, or Secasia and then Delos," Denis answered almost absently as he stepped into the lower control room. "Thinking of asking for passage ahead this time?" Denis found he wasn't adverse to the idea, as long as there was a solution to the whole 'Presence in purgatory' thing on a ship the size and temperament of _Sun-Treader_. Adan had said he was a pilot. Maybe that was the answer.

"What did you do before?" Denis grinned, moving over to his couch and quickly scanning his screens. He needed to get the Ficinan model up, and the secondary musonar. "I'm sure this was not the first time you've stowed away on a starship. Probably not even the dozenth. Can you handle outer-system mu-sonograms and tau-rho tracking? Keyboard's at the second couch."

"The disruption isn't so bad on bigger ships," Methos admitted, "and it's also getting distinctly worse with age.  If I'm piloting, it doesn't seem to be an issue, though the ship will definitely run faster than usual."  He seated himself on the second couch, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the location of everything.  "I think I can probably handle this."  He looked up at Denis, who was bent over his own equipment, and the sight of him, his profile sharp and clean, his eyes intent, was enough to provoke an unexpected intake of breath.  He let himself look for a long moment before taking his eyes away.

"How much faster?" The model was up, symbols and colors and lines making familiar patterns. Something was giving the system trouble, though, and the usual deep violet swath sprinkled with lighter dots that marked the Oort cloud  was a muddy streak, without definition. They really didn't want to run into a chunk of ice out here, and there was a lot of it to run into; Castax had a particularly active and dense population of comets, unlike Athos Maria, where even one was cause for Approach to remark on it. He poked at the tuning keys, trying to make it resolve. "It might be the scale the keel is tuned to as well. We're Numluli, not Asterion or one of the other standards."

The gauze on his hands was slowing his fingers, and the movement was pulling at the burns on his palms. Refusing to wince, Denis glanced over at Adan. He seemed to have found all the right controls, and the third screen was busily scrolling through the chart data, mapping the resonance of their immediate vicinity.

"Julie?" Denis called over his headset, "You ready there? I've got a real approach-line mapped. Castax-4-epsilon over deep-2 should be about right."

"All set here." Julie's voice was steady. "Bringing the power up two points." The low vibration that had hummed through the ship increased, a song felt as much as heard. 

It felt good to be back in a cockpit, to be surrounded by ship-song again.  It was worlds apart from the way he first took to the stars, but infinitely more familiar.  As always, he could feel his presence reaching for the empty spaces in the music, intertwining with the song of the ship and of the approaching planet.  It always left him feeling a little drugged, his reactions a little slower than usual, the sights and noises around him feeling more significant.  He took up his own part in the course change almost on autopilot, thoroughly absorbed in the way the song wove through ship and space.

Julie's voice came over the intercom, "Denis? I've got two anomalies on my instruments. We're getting almost a full point of power generation over the harmonium setting, and there's some kind of shift in the local-space harmonic strings."

Denis looked over at Adan, who appeared to be almost communing with the ship, or space or the music of the keel, if not all three at once. His hands were light on the keys, making tiny movements, weaving a thread of something Denis could almost hear, that resonated in his bones and blood and on his skin. "The power, that's you, isn't it." It wasn't a question, but neither was it an accusation. If anything, there was a note not quite of awe, but certainly of wonder.

"Hm?" Methos' voice was slow, hovering on the edges of slurred.  "Oh.  Yes, that's me."  He frowned, trying to translate what he was hearing into the more mundane realities of ship and space.  "That shift, though -- that's not me.  That's..." His voice trailed off, frustration trying to break through the almost artificial serenity imposed by such close contact with the ship's song.  He closed his eyes again, trying to figure out what it was that he was hearing.

Just as Denis turned back to look more closely at the near-space musonar, the strain-gauges jumped, and a sharp, staccato buzz cut through the flight-song. Over the intercom, Denis could hear Julie swearing.

"That's the proximity alarm, Denis, and whatever it is has a live keel."

The strain-gauges jumped another increment, and now the violet swath showed an ugly brown stain, growing brighter by the moment. "What the hell ..." Denis's fingers flew on his keys, turning off the alarm and calling up the specialized filter that would identify a Wrath-of-God ID beacon. The glow on the screen stayed stubbornly anonymous. "They've got some kind of cloak or interference screen. And they're not one of ours."

"Going to override on main harmonium. Secondary is live. Do you need more power?"

"Not yet." Denis reached across and flipped the four switches that brought the weapons-systems online. It would take a few minutes for them to fully power up, but the lights were all clear yellow shading rapidly toward green. "Adan, give them a hail, send our ID, using the third encryption set."

Methos punched the necessary keys, struggling now to free his quickening from the song of the ship, to throw up shields that were next to impossible to use in spaceflight.  He couldn't afford to be tangled in music if an attack came.  Pulling free was desperately necessary and at the same time next to impossible.  He managed it at last and slammed his shields into place with a force that echoed through his mind.  The struggle had only taken a second or two, but it had seemed to go on for hours, and when he lifted a hand to his forehead the latter was damp with sweat.

Adan had done ... something, and the music of the ship was abruptly ordinary, the strain-gauges still quivering, but not as close to the danger zones as before. Distantly, Denis missed the almost tangible sense of connection with the ship and everything else, but pushed any thought of it from his mind. Whatever Adan had done had clearly taken effort, and Denis felt a different kind of pang at seeing him grey-faced and sweating. No time for that either.

"Power readings back in spec. Whoever they are, they're tuned Castagi, and have weapons hot. Inner shiplocks ready to engage." Julie was worried, if he was willing to close all the secondary compartment and hull seals.

"The ID-autorepeater says she's _Bat out of Hell_ , heavy freighter registered to Tourmaline Combine out of Chalcedony." She might indeed be called Bat out of Hell, but heavy freighter she was not. Now that they had dropped whatever disguise they were using, her keel shone on the musonar with the eye-aching light of a full-powered Navy Three, and so far their hail had gone unanswered. He'd sent their Wrath-of-God courier ID, figuring the other ship for a pirate, and the sane independent operators generally left Wrath-affiliated ships alone. Perhaps the play had worked. Not that he was counting on it, however.

Just then the strain-gauges spiked again, and _Sun-Treader_ seemed to stagger on her course. The speaker hissed and spat before a crackling voice proclaimed "Surrender, or the next shot strikes the keel."  

Damn. Denis's hands were flying on his boards. "We can't fight this one, Julie. They either think we're poaching or we're bluffing, and either way they're bigger than we are." He shot a look over at Adan. "Better strap in. Julie, give me half again and then the purgatory shortcut." His fingers fumbled on the catches to his own flight-straps, and when the music swelled with only one fastened, he gave it up and attended wholly to flying. "They can't follow us to Decelea."

Methos pulled on his straps with hands gone suddenly numb.  Flashes of the last time he had been in this sort of situation kept passing before his eyes: the warning shot, the keel peeling away before his eyes, the endless three months in which he'd gasped his way to death over and over, the looks on the faces of the salvage crew that had eventually recovered his body --- He forced himself to focus on the present, on the hum of the ship around him and the commands being snapped out over the intercom.

"If they hit the keel, what are the chances the ship will survive it?" he demands.

"Not good." Denis's voice was grim, all his attention on his boards. "Power, Julie. I need everything we've got."

"Stops out in five, Denis. One."

"Surrender is not an option here. Shadow-force or black-trader, they won't take prisoners." Denis wasn't even aware he was muttering aloud. Julie's count continued down. 

"Four," Methos heard; then sight and hearing alike faded as he pulled down the shields he'd constructed so laboriously.  There was no time to ease into the song; instead he hurled himself blindly into the music, chords and notes flooding his consciousness as they wrapped themselves around his presence.  He could feel the harmonium as a separate, pulsing point of power and light, could sense the structure of the ship a ghostly skeleton around it, only the keel gleaming bright and solid. Two other nodes of energy were present as well, misty-silver and faint, but as persistent as the keel-light. Without conscious thought, he threaded his Quickening through that ghostly structure until it glowed brighter, more solid, in his senses; wove it into the keel-song until the keel was almost as bright as the harmonium itself.  He could sense the approaching threshold of Purgatory, and distantly realized that he has no Presence-baffling shipsuit on; then the music swelled around him and there was no more room in his head for anything but the sound of it.

"Five. Full power, both harmoniums." Julie's voice was tense under his deliberate tone. "Purgatory shortcut sequence laid in."

The big ship was close, the strain gauges creeping through yellow into the red, interference making the musonar nearly as useless as the Ficinan model. At least there was only the one pirate — the apparent doubling an artifact of the shield — and if it was a bastard Navy Three then _Sun-Treader_ would have an edge in maneuvering. The chords built, rose higher, deeper, filling every space with music. The hyperawareness that Denis had felt briefly earlier returned even stronger, until it seemed that he, too was part of the music, part of the ship. Somehow he didn't need the interface of the screens, but could process the visual and symbolic information unfiltered, and he let his hands move, nudging the ship just that way over, nosing down to use the upper hull to shield the keel, feeling the jolt and burn of the glancing fire like a heylin stun bolt through armor. He _knew_ that Julie was matching him note and pulse, as if they were all one will and separate hands.

They were close, so close to Purgatory, the hull beginning to transluce, the controls sticky in his hands. Flickers of silver-blue radiance coruscated on every edge and surface. _Bat out of Hell_ was still on top of them, shadowing their path, and now a spread of bolts raced toward them, impossible to dodge, somehow guided, not just fired. Magus onboard. They had a magus guiding that fire. Almost despairing, Denis put everything he had into coaxing the last smidgen of swiftness, of power, of grace, into _Sun-Treader_ 's flight, willing her to the safety of the Twelfth of Heaven. Baleful light overpowered the screens, washed over the hull, hot gold and red burning on every surface. The keel keened, almost a shriek, only it was a scream of music, unbearable harmony, impossible, perfect chords, and for a moment it was as if the universe blinked. The silver fire swallowed the red-gold. The ship shivered and every system, every screen and light and gauge, every mechanism went alt-state, effectively meaningless for a timeless span.

When the bolt hit the ship, Julie was completely focussed on getting every possible note and erg out of the harmonium, hands spread wide on the keys, seemingly tuned to Denis's every breath, every move. The music built around him, washed through him until the harmonium was playing him as much as he was playing it, the secondary reinforcing the primary harmonies, the power that was Adan that had disturbed before sustaining now, like another rank of pipes, adding notes that shook in Julie's bones, set coronae glowing that even Julie could perceive in the depths of the ship. 

They were everywhere and nowhere, DenisMethosJulie, their very substance one with each other, with the ship, with the stars, one great chord in the eternal music of the spheres, spread infinitely vast, pressed infinitesimally small, strung through the heart of paradox, of Mystery, airless and shadowless and utterly incomprehensible. 

Then there was air again, and Denis could feel his heart thudding against his ribs. Silver-blue lines still shimmered in his vision, but they were fading, and through the treated strip of hull that was the bottom of the piloting bridge, he could see the hard, fixed coronae of the distant stars. The were well into Purgatory. Julie had managed to start the second sequence on his own, and now Denis began to make sense of the sounds in his ears.

"Stopping down the shortcut, bringing in high-purgatory. We're almost at 8/12ths Denis, and I can't slow her. You need to get to the wheel now."

"Right. Getting." His throat was raw, as if he had been screaming with the ship. His hands were numb, no, burning, and he could hardly undo the catch, tearing the gauze. He stumbled up from the couch, hanging onto the edge of the console. Adan was limp, held into the second couch by the webbing. Denis couldn't tell if he was breathing or not, but there was agony in his face, in the rigid curls of his hands, nails driven deep into flesh. There was no time to do anything about it. Nothing he could do to make him more comfortable, or even be sure he would come back from what ever it was he had done to save them, ship and all. 

Denis clung to the fact that the faint silver edges and the lingering sense of connection to everything remained. The floor guided his feet, the steps of the ladder seeming to know where he should be, helping him get there. (Was this what pseudo-animation was closer to Heaven?) The wheel glimmered, the hull utterly transparent, clear as crystal, the dark beyond potent with possibility. He slid his feet into the waiting depressions and thumbed off the lock, grateful that he hadn't properly powered down the systems. "Taking the con, Julie."

"Helm is yours." Denis could hear Julie swallow, and the look of concern and care and rock-solid dependability was vivid in Denis's mind. "I'll be here."

"Thanks." He hoped Julie could hear everything that went into that word. He didn't usually say it, but It seemed particularly important this close to Heaven to try to communicate truth, even in inadequate words. He gripped the wheel, feeling the  subtle pull of the symbolic and literal linkages, the weightless weight of the ship. His hands burned, and he used the pain to focus. One Road. One destination. The Path of Light Darkening. He opened his eyes and the symbols were overwhelmingly present, the beach, the bird, the star, disturbingly warped, as if this far into purgatory the destruction of the planet made the road harder. It didn't matter. Twisted lines were still lines, and the garish backlighting was no worse than the bolt of fire that Adan had, somehow, absorbed and used to throw them high and far into purgatory. He bent to the task. Decelea. Safety. Only the Road.

The ache in his chest was overwhelming, but it took Methos a long moment to realize what 'his chest' meant; took him a moment to realize that he was human, bound to a body of flesh and blood instead of living music, strung between the stars.  Sitting up was beyond him at the moment, so he settled for opening his eyes.  Everything was lined in Quickening-fire, Purgatory revealing his connection with the ship.  He hoped to every god he'd ever heard named that he would be able to disentangle before they dropped out of Purgatory.  He didn't particularly want to find out what would happen if he couldn't.  At the moment, though, it was impossible.  He was so entwined with the ship and its song that he had to concentrate to realize where the music ended and he began.

Oddly enough, the pain helped.  He was injured; the ship, fortunately, was not.  It gave him a starting point, a way to distinguish muscle and bone from wiring and steel.  He managed to sit up, to disentangle himself from the harness.  From the look of things, they were at a much higher level of Purgatory than that at which most pilots were comfortable sustaining flight.  Sheer determination got him up the short ladder to the piloting deck. From the expression of concentration on Denis's face, that was true for him as well.  This high, this close to the ship, the music felt as if it was etching itself onto his very bones.  Speech was difficult; remembering which language to use was even more of a challenge.  Phrases seemed to flood through his mind in snatches of long-ago conversation, only to somehow repeat themselves in the harmonium's song.  

"Denis." The name helped the rest of the words fall into place more easily.  "Is everyone all right?"

Denis flinched as the sound of his name pulled him out of near-trance, and his hands tightened on the wheel, sending lances of pain up his arms. They were still very high in purgatory, the odd weight of Adan's Presence paradoxically lightening the symbolic drag of the ship on this road, the drooping bird and the darkly bright star as heavy on the heart as the hands. Still on the road. And Adan was behind him, no disturbance to the path at all, not like the earlier Road.

"Julie's fine. No damage to the ship." More a croak than a voice — It was hard to speak. If anything his throat was stiffer than before. He swallowed, tried again. "Thank you. For doing ... whatever it was you did." He risked a quick look at the man.

Adan was a creature of white fire, achingly beautiful. The lines of his face were stark and pure, his eyes deeper than the space between the stars, yet piercingly present. There was a blue shadow on one side of his face, a faint tracery of indigo and cobalt, the color of pain. His clothes did nothing to veil the strength and beauty of his body. Abruptly Denis was very glad of his own shipsuit that would, he hoped, cover his own sudden aching arousal.  Adan's throat burned bright, the opposite of a wound, and the only mark on his body was a scar over his heart, where a blade had pierced him. Steel glimmered at the small of his back, bronze at wrist and ankle, a glassy iridescence at his waist. Weapons. Blades. Denis tore his eyes away, back to the wheel, the voidmarks. His hands were clenched on the spokes; he could not tell if the blood on them was old or fresh. In the truth of high purgatory, Denis could not tell himself that he was not aroused even further by those edges, sheathed but ready. He swallowed again. The bird was still aligned with the star, the weight of the ship a drag on his shoulders. "Are _you_ , " he did not allow him self to look back again, "all right?"

"I'm fine," Methos said.  In Purgatory, he could see flashes of the skeleton every mortal would eventually become.  Usually, it was disturbing; today it barely registered against the green blaze of Denis's eyes.  "Would you like me to spell you at the wheel for a bit?"  The offer wasn't entirely altruistic; Methos needed to get properly disentangled from the ship, and the outward focus needed to pilot should help him do just that.

Denis bit back an almost reflexive no. Adan had said he was a pilot, and Denis realized as he thought it that Adan was older than the War, could conceivably have flown the dead roads before their destinations had been destroyed.  "Do you know the Path of Light Darkening? Castax to Decelea?"

Methos lifted an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.  Running a dead Road fit with the ghostly tattoo on Denis's cheekbone, and Methos was not terribly surprised by it.  "I think I can manage," he said dryly, and manage he could, though he did so a little differently than most pilots.

"Your ship will be in safe hands, I promise," he said, keeping his tone light and his eyes serious.  For a moment, he considered emphasizing the words with a hand on Denis's shoulder.  Methos wanted to touch him, but decided against it.  As extended as his Quickening was at the moment, and as strongly as his body was reacting to Denis, it might not be a good idea.  The last thing he wanted was for his Quickening to wrap itself around Denis.  Only the gods knew what might happen then, especially in the chancy and fluid environment of Purgatory.

Purgatory was having its usual effect, peeling away the other personalities he wore like so many protective garments and leaving only himself behind.  It was the main reason he preferred to stay on one planet; in Purgatory, he could not hide for long.  The relief of knowing that both Denis and Julie already had at least some idea as to his true nature was so deep as to be profound.

"We're about half way there." Denis could feel Adan's bright solidity like a sun on his back, and he resisted the urge to just lean back into him and let himself be held. He was over-tired and attracted. That was all. He peeled his hands from the spokes of the wheel, not quite able to suppress a hiss of pain as they came away. The blood that gleamed in the shadowy light of Purgatory was both old and new. "I'll be in the control room." He toggled on the intercom, setting it to ship-wide. "Julie, I'm letting Adan take the wheel."

"Denis?" There was real worry in Julie's prompt response.

"It's fine. I'm fine." He wasn't fine, otherwise he wouldn't be letting Adan pilot, but Julie would know that; he didn't have to say it. He stumbled as he tugged his feet out of the cling-foam, and would have fallen if Adan hadn't caught him.

Methos moved automatically to catch Balthasar as he fell, and realized only as his hands closed around the man's shoulders that he'd made a serious mistake. 

His Quickening reacted before he could let go — hitting the deck might have been better for Denis, he thought; then it was all he could do to maintain any sort of coherency.  He could feel Denis against him, the whole lean, muscular length of the man, and so well that they both might as well be naked.  Quickening-fire wrapped along his arms and down to Denis's, but instead of the  ecstatic agony that was its usual companion, it trailed painless heat in its wake.  Methos was trapped by sensations; his own, and, he realized after a moment, Denis's as well.  The hands he felt gripping his upper arms were his own.  Every place their bodies touched seemed electrified, the sensations magnified and doubled.  His fingers tightened involuntarily.  This close, Denis's eyes were a blaze of emerald.  Distantly, he could tell that his Quickening was no longer wrapped up in the ship; instead, all of it was caught up in flowing between himself and Denis.

Closing one's eyes in Purgatory made no difference. Denis always forgot that. The brilliance that was Adan burned away the shame that Denis denied whenever his body failed him, leaving him feeling only held, almost floating, in the expanding shimmer that was the immortal. It was like the moment when the pirate had fired on _Sun-Treader_ , only without the intermediate sense of the ship, and for a moment Denis could not tell the difference between held and holding, burning with life and struggling to stand, to breathe, to think. He could feel the oppressive emptiness of the space around them, the louring weight of the broken road, the rich harmonies of the keelsong sending them through the aether. His lungs remembered the tearing pressure of vacuum, his hands the weight of blades, bronze and steel and glass and light, his tongue the taste of sex and lightning.

Then there was an insistent, thick disharmony, a sound of strain, a voice he knew and cared about (loved, but could not say, lest he lose what he did have) sharp in his ear.

"Denis, Adan, what's wrong?! Strain gauges at 60 and rising." Julie's voice, booming over the intercom.

"We're fine."  Methos sounded strangled, even to his own ears.  "I've got the wheel."  He eased Denis to the narrow couch and took said wheel.  His hands were still glowing, and he could still feel Denis, a not-quite-separate presence in the back of his head.  It was a real challenge to take the wheel, to submerge himself in the ship's song, with the humming almost-melody that was Denis still very present in his consciousness, but he managed it after a moment's awkwardness.

"Sorry about that," he told Julie.  "I need to take a look at Denis as soon as we stop, though.  He overdid things; nearly hit the deck.  I had to catch him."  He omitted the strange dual flush of feeling, and the way it was still lingering, like the memory of hands on skin.

Denis could hear Julie and Adan, but couldn't seem to find enough of himself to move or speak, but he knew, oddly, that between them Julie and Adan would bring them safe to ordinary space.  Finally he let the shining darkness pull him under. 

After a long moment, Julie replied, the evenness of his voice imperfectly covering a deep worry. "Strain gauges down to 15 and steady; back on the line. Do you need me to come up? Everything here will hold for a little while."

"Please," Methos said, trying to keep his own voice even.  He wasn't sure what being so close to a Quickening might have done to Denis -- or, more to the point, what mightn't it have done.  He knew the man was still alive -- could feel him in the back of his head -- but he hadn't spoken.  The thought of nine thousand years' worth of memories forcing themselves into a mind not built to handle them was an unpleasant one.  "I'd be glad if you could check him out."

"On my way."

* * *

The piloting bridge on _Sun-Treader_ had never been intended for three people, and even with Denis's slight figure on the narrow couch, Julie filled the space. Their passenger-stowaway was concentrating on piloting; concentrating sufficiently that Julie could almost see the voidmarks he was steering by, which was something, given Julie's non-symbolic bent. The man was a blaze of white light, dazzling and very much of the kind of sharply beautiful danger that Denis was attracted to. By comparison, Denis was almost a shadow, the shipsuit cloaking him in grey mist, face and hands all that was visible in the chancy light of Purgatory. Much easier to look at. He was unconscious; the barest outline of the familiar flaming skull floating on his cheekbone, green eyes dim without force of Denis's personality behind them. Julie always forgot (despite having flown with him for years now) how little physical space Denis actually occupied. But his pulse was steady, the beat of his blood swift and unhindered, visible at his throat. The protective curl of his hands was more worrisome, and the grey-purple smudges under his eyes.

Julie felt his own heart squeeze a little, disturbed in ways he didn't like to think about to see Denis so still. "I think he'll be alright if we let him come out of it himself. Can you finish the Road?"

Methos nodded, Julie's words only distantly reaching him.  It had been nearly forty years since he last piloted a ship — all of his recent traveling had been as a passenger or stowaway on ships large enough not to be badly disturbed by his presence -- and while he hadn't forgotten, neither had he quite remembered -- how the songs of ship and space wrapped themselves around and through his Quickening, wove themselves into his mind. Even Denis's continued presence in the back of his mind contributed to rather than detracted from the weight of the experience.  Distantly, he knew that he should probably be concerned about that; at the moment, though, he didn't much care.

 _Pilots_ Julie thought to himself with some irritation, and had to assume that the somewhat vague motion of Adan's head had been a nod. "Any idea how long?"

"Soon?" Methos said absently, adjusting the wheel slightly.  He usually managed to coax a ship into going about half again as fast as it would under ordinary circumstances, and a half-and-half could outrun almost everything in the sky.

Julie forbore sighing. It wouldn't help. Carefully, he arranged Denis a little more securely on the couch and buckled the crash-webbing snugly over him. "I'd better get back to the harmonium then."

Methos nodded vaguely.  Now that he was no longer worried about Denis, the ship's song was harder to ignore.  He could feel Denis in there too, a quiet secondary presence woven into the music.  He wondered briefly what the man was dreaming about, if he was dreaming; if he would wake up with bits and pieces of Methos' memories swimming about next to his own.  It wasn't outside of the realm of possibility, especially as the entire thing was outside of the realm of Methos' experience.

Julie made his way back down to the warm light of Engineering and the comfortable familiarity of harmonia and tinctured, solid bulkheads. Kesse had not prepared him for men like Denis, like Adan. His father's pilots and captains had been capable men, stolid, intelligent and sufficiently imaginative, but not clever, not burning bright. Respectable, even kind, but not men to whom one would wake one day and discover a loyalty that reverberated in ones bones. Julie had known (known since the fall of Kesse) that the only true word for what was between them was love, and though he flinched still from what that might mean, what it might say about who and what Julie was, he did not deny the truth, though he didn't speak it either. Denis was not the only one who could keep a secret. Adan was another of the same stamp. And Julie could already see that there was something between them, now, too. Possibly all of them. Not excepting _Sun-Treader_ herself. There were notes in the underlying harmonies Julie had never heard before, textures and colors and even tastes that made everything brighter, sweeter, achingly, terribly beautiful.

Julie shook his head sharply. That was not Adan, that was because they were flying well above 8/12ths of heaven, and no ship flew higher than 10/12ths. He had a job of work to do, to ease them down slowly, channel and tune and exactingly attenuate the glorious music to something humans could bear. Gently, he set his hands to the keys, broad, blunt fingers on glassine surfaces and started edging them back to the heights they knew. Julie was acutely aware, in a way he was not usually, of the tiny shifts of pitch and apparent motion, the Working of the Pilot's Art, and how his actions, his very presence, meshed with that; aware of the difference that was Adan, unknown yet oddly, occasionally familiar (that was _Denis's_ slip-skip move, just a jog of the wheel, to be matched with just a touch of that key, only, this time a mere breath of it). Julie pushed all the thoughts away and immersed himself in the music.

* * *

Coming down out of the upper reaches tugged at Methos.  There was a sort of reluctance at the idea of descent rather than ascent, a desire to see what would happen if he pushed them higher.  It wasn't a difficult impulse to ignore -- far from it -- but it was still there, and worth noting.  

The real trick was going to be disentangling himself and Denis from the ship's song.  His Quickening wanted to stay wrapped up in the music, wrapped around Denis, and he almost had to coax it to let go.  Pulling away from the ship was his first priority, but the shields he put up, while separating him from the music, didn't do anything to separate him from Denis.  If anything, it made him more conscious of the man, now that the music wasn't vibrating through all the spaces in his soul.  He wanted to look over at Denis, then realized even as the impulse formed that he didn't have to; that he was almost as aware of Denis as he was of himself. There was none of the strange doubling of sensation that had occurred earlier, but it was still startling.

Denis became aware of sound first, the intricate layering of music, the deep, steady undertones shifting in stately dance, the solid mid-chords diminishing almost imperceptibly, the lighter, higher notes like a breeze more felt than heard. He knew somehow that they were descending from almost impossible heights, that Adan (a name, a fitting sound-shape for the complexity guiding his ship, but not the True Name, not the Word that chimed and chattered and sang in his mind) was nearing the end of the dead Road. The tattered, garish image of the bird that marked the exit swam before his eyes, faintly haloed with its true shape, laced with the tiny veins in his eyelids; he had not yet opened his eyes, but that hardly mattered. Denis could feel the pull of it, the weight of his hands on the wheel, his hands curled close and heavy on his chest under the drag of netting. Usually it was a last almost desperate shove upward to reach the mark; this time _Sun-Treader_ was falling toward it, swift and inexorable. The inversion from apparent weight to equally illusory weightlessness was a familiar shock, Adan-Adam-Methos bringing them through with only a sharp gasp of breath that Denis felt echoed in his own throat. 

Then they were falling in truth, out of purgatory and back into mundane space and time. And while pirates were highly unlikely, the broken system was more than dangerous enough. Denis fumbled for the catches on the netting. Adan was still caught up in the fading symbols, the loud harmonies of their descent. He had to get to the bridge, engage the pre-sets for Decelea, approximate though they were. He didn't dare look at the beauty that tugged at eye and heart and mind. The catch gave. Denis fell to the deck, tucking instinctively to avoid the jutting spokes of the wheel, ignoring every signal his body gave him. He had to get to the controls on the bridge, therefore he would get there, his body's complaints not withstanding. Needs must. It was easier to swing his legs around and slide down the ladder to the main bridge than stand and climb down, and that way he didn't need — wouldn't be tempted — to risk stumbling headlong against Adan and wrapping his shivering self around that perceptive and un-condemning fire and never letting go. No, don't even think it. Think of _Sun-Treader_ , and Julie, and the Captain's Road, and getting them all to a safe pocket in the chaos of disharmony, so they could take stock and think what to do. Not to mention that they really did have to get back to Castax, and promptly too. 

The gauze on his hands was irritating, hindering his fingers on the keys, and Denis used that to focus. Pull the pre-set, match it to the current system music (if one could call it music; though there really wasn't another word for it) and finesse it from there. Ficinan model and musonar both showed that they'd come out in a relatively calm spot, across the system from the worst of the clangor, though the flaring rage of the star was always a danger. He reached for the intra-ship mic and realized he still had his headset on. "Julie, stop down to two thirds and match the local space. We're in a good spot where we are and I want to stay here for a bit." Of course 'stay here' didn't mean actually stopping, not in a place like this, but the slow dance of far orbit. It would give them all time to figure out what the Hell was going on.

"Two-thirds stopped and set. I'll be fine-tuned …. Now." 

Julie's voice was almost studiedly calm. It was a surprising balm to Denis's still-exposed nerves. Adan was an awareness almost like a geas, a harmonic bonding only without the compulsion, just the _presence_. It stirred things that had long been forgotten. Denis refused to think about them. Any of them. "Thank you. I'll set things for pseudo-autopilot."

Methos shook his head, feeling as if he'd just come up out of very deep water.  He could still feel Denis, though the tangle of emotions and sensations is more distant now, more manageable.  It reminded him a little of the connection he'd shared with MacLeod immediately after Kronos' death, but only because that was his only frame of reference for something like this.  He ran one hand through his hair and leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, before throwing the locks on the wheel and making his own way down from the pilot's bridge.

* * *

Julie took his time with the orbit settings, tinkering with the tuning, setting the secondary harmonium to play an almost subliminal counterpoint to the main array, canceling out the worst of the crawling disharmony of vanished Decelea and creating a sphere of calm in which a man could think. Julie knew the signs. Adan may have only been on the ship less than a day (subjective, but not quite a day in any case) and he might as well be the embodiment of what attracted Denis. Dangerous. Sharp. Quick, clever, neat with his hands, talented with his mouth. In more ways than one, Julie reckoned - he may have grown up sheltered and accustomed to the traditions and mores of Kesse, but he had eyes, and Denis alone was an education, much less making a base on Delos. Julie even knew, unarticulated, shying away from the thought, not yet ready to meet it face on, that Denis found _him_ attractive, that he was in the very small circle of people Denis truly and deeply cared about. Adan was another, not just potentially it seemed. Julie did not often have hunches, but he knew to pay attention to them, and his belly and the space between his shoulder-blades were telling him that Adan mattered. Would be important to Denis. Would be important to Julie himself.

There was nothing more he could reasonably do in the sanctuary of Engineering, and if he fiddled any more he would do more harm than good. Stretching up and out, Julie let out a deep breath. "Better get on with it" he told himself, and made his way to the commons to collect three cups of caff and some waybread. Judging by past history, Denis would be prickly with exhaustion that he refused to acknowledge, and in that febrile state of almost hyper-awareness, flying by instinct and Art, but needing an anchor, not to mention someone to put food in his hand so he'd eat it. And powers only knew what Adan would be like after a flight like that. The drop out of purgatory had been a thing of wonder, terrifying and exhilarating both, Julie playing the main harmonium by ear and sheer familiarity with the ship. More like a ride at the Solstice Fair than an orderly transition: amazing once, but not something he cared to repeat unnecessarily. Hands full, he bumped the lock-plate to the bridge with his elbow, and walked in.

Methos looked up, and nodded briefly at Julie, not trusting himself to speak quite yet.  He felt almost as if he'd taken a Quickening -- there was the same restlessness, the same thread of ill temper running just below the surface, the feeling of too much energy coiled under his skin.

Julie caught the jerky nod that Adan gave him, the eyes like burnt holes in parchment and the spots of color on knife-sharp cheekbones. Denis's hands shook visibly as he reached for the (carefully merely warm) mug in the little depression on the board, and he was breathing in strict and deliberate time, his mouth tight with concentration and strain. Oh Hell below, Julie thought to himself, suddenly exasperated and feeling very grounded and mundane indeed. _Both_ of them wound tighter than catch-wire and still at least part-way in Pilot's Purgatory. And if he guessed right, they were caught together in it, with the fundamental wrongness of the broken system keeping them from bleeding the energy off. A glance at the screens confirmed what Julie's ears had already told him - that Denis had navigated them to a stable spot among the debris and they would be safe to leave the instruments for a while. It was at times like this that Julie didn't regret his own more phlegmatic nature in the least.

Julie thumped his mug down on the arm of the third couch and watched both Denis and Adan react to the noise. "Adan," he said - not sharply, that wouldn't help, but brooking no opposition, "Sit. Do whatever you do for ground and center. We're safe. We're here." He held Adan's eye until the man sat back on the second-station flight-couch, letting the cushions take his weight. "Good." Julie didn't try to catch Denis's eye, but continued in the same voice "Denis. Leave go. Just breathe. We're here. We're safe. _Leave go_."

One, two, three difficult breaths later, and the tension ran out of Denis like water, leaving him nearly as limp in his couch as he had been on the Pilot's bridge earlier. But his hands were almost steady on the mug. Good. Julie reached over to put the packet of waybread on the top of the instrument housing between the Denis and Adan. "Waybread. Eat some, both of you." Still commanding but rather softer. He finally sat himself down, his exasperation evaporating as suddenly as it came. "So. We're here. What next?"

Centering himself was a matter of habit, practiced and perfected over thousands of years.  Even when he'd ridden with the Horsemen, he'd kept himself under a tight control that had only increased in the millennia since.  He couldn't banish the tension, but he could put it aside and let it dissipate on its own; could force his body to relax into the couch and make himself eat when Julie ordered him to.  The answer to the man's question, though, was beyond him, at least for the moment.  All he could really do was shrug in response.

Julie hadn't expected an answer from Adan, though one wouldn't have surprised him. He was more surprised that the man had simply obeyed him. Denis on the other hand…. For a moment Julie's hands itched with the desire to shake sense into that uncommunicative skull, but he was well aware that would only make matters worse. Denis was obvious already barely hanging on to the edges of his ability to cope. Julie sighed instead, running his fingers over the pleasant texture of his mug. Finally he said, quite softly, more nudge than question, "Denis?" 

On one level, Denis knew quite well that he was in trouble — too many shocks to a system already stressed — but he had long since learned to ignore and compensate for that kind of weakness as mere physical shortcomings. Harder to ignore was the acute awareness of both Julie and Adan, not as crew, or friends, but as men, virile and desired. Piloting often aroused him, but not like this. He was very glad they had not been forced to resort to the Ganymede run to escape the pirate. He almost wished he'd taken Luomi up on his offer; if only for the momentary relief. As it was the confinement of his shipsuit was distinctly uncomfortable. Nothing to be done but try to ignore that too. Focusing on the commanding rumble of Julie's voice had allowed Denis to finally clear his head of the last effects of Purgatory, the familiarity of it a comfort. But even after Julie urged him back to attention on the immediate need Denis wasn't ready to meet either of their eyes. Nor did he really want to think about what they had just done, but no getting around that. He took a swallow of Julie's excellent caff and found his voice. "I didn't - don't - see any fault-lights, but we'd better take a look at both the keel and the cargo to make sure. The noise here won't help, but I don't want to try going anywhere else without checking." 

"It's fine."  Methos didn't need to get up to know that, even with the separation he'd forced between himself and the ship.  "The keel is, anyway.  I'd have noticed, otherwise."  He closed his eyes, then opened them again, using sight as a barrier to keep the contents of his head at bay.  "I'm not sure about the cargo.  Christ, but I could use a beer."  That wasn't an exclamation that anyone really used anymore, though beer itself had certainly never gone out of style, but then, he was having a harder time than usual remembering that sort of thing at the moment.

Denis bit back the first sharp words that came to mind, briefly stung by the casual surety of Adan's statement. It wasn't arrogance, though Denis almost wished it were, because he could use the energy that annoyance would give him. But the memory of seeing through Adan's eyes, of being essentially one with _Sun-Treader_ for that impossible moment told him that Adan was only telling truth. Julie spoke up before Denis could say anything unwise anyway.

"I don't think the keel took any harm, but I'll run diagnostics, just to make sure. There were some pretty sharp stresses there, and the treble link-lock on the third rank pipes doesn't do well with disturbance in the deep harmonics. This system is nothing but disturbance. I'll re-tune the cargo too. Something shifted when we came out of Purgatory." 

Methos nodded absently, only half-hearing him.  He could still feel Denis in his head.  It was not as detailed as before, but he had a general sense as to how the man was feeling; felt the same tug that had pulled at him earlier, though it was muted now, easier to put aside.  Distance and time had attenuated the connection he'd formed with MacLeod after Kronos' death, but MacLeod was Immortal, and Methos' awareness of him had never been as intimate. Immortals were also built to take -- and absorb -- Quickenings.  They were supposed to fade after a time.  It was entirely possible that this connection wouldn't.  That was more than a little disturbing.  If Denis knew as much about him as he now knew about Denis....  The idea was enough to make him wince.  He didn't like the thought of being so exposed, even to a mortal.

"Thank you, Julie," Denis said. 

Julie nodded as he went out the door. 

Denis let his head fall back on the headrest, looking up at the ceiling. He went on almost absently, " Beer will definitely be in order once we get to Castax." Get to Castax they would, promptly if he had his way. Not just for the delivery, but to tell someone about that ship lurking out on the edges of the system. Maybe it was a pirate, but it was not beyond the realm of possibility that it has actually been a Navy ship, and that was a far more frightening development if it were. Luomi's tamper-sealed envelope had gone into the same safe place as _Sun-Treader's_ several sets of ID and registration papers other than that currently in use (including Denis's own certification as Captain-Owner, and the medallion of a Wrath-of-God Captain-Senior under Simple Oath — as far as Denis knew, the only such one currently in existence: they'd had to strike one especially for him by Eren-Tirain's order; the one he generally wore was a standard Trader-Captain's, utterly common and unremarkable) and other such documents. The delivery of that envelope was more important than the entire rest of the cargo, as usefully and innocently lucrative as it was, not to mention that it would pay nearly twice as much. Money enough to replace all the link-locks on the harmonium with credit to spare. And more to the point, less quantifiable credit owed _Sun-Treader_ and Denis personally from the Office of Master of Revels. Not delivering it, or delivering it late (they weren't late yet, a week would be late, three days comfortably on time; Denis had been aiming for early) would entail … complications that Denis did not care to contemplate. On the other hand, he was going to have to look up the Road back to Castax, and even the thought of _thinking_ about 'In hydraulis' set knives to his nerves. He _wanted_ twelve hours undisturbed sleep in the privacy of his cabin. What he was going to get was a nap right here on the bridge. It would have to do. Adan would know if anything did go amiss, and Denis _really_ wasn't thinking about why that was, just as he'd shut all the glittering, seductive and almost-familiar images and feelings behind practiced walls of focus and compartmentalization. 

Denis found the energy to glance at Adan, meeting a look he could not, would not try to interpret. "Wake me when Julie's done. Watch for surges in the mid-spectrum from the star's corona. If they flare, the wake can reach where we are." That would have to do. Denis hoped it would be enough.

He was unconscious on the thought. 

Methos leaned back in his seat, studying Denis thoughtfully.  He could feel the difference between sleeping and waking through the connection he couldn't quite ignore.  When Denis did wake up, they were going to have to sit down and discuss things.  Ignoring them wouldn't do either of them any good.  

Asleep, the worst of the tension in Denis seemed to have eased.  His hands were relaxed and still for the first time since they met, and the faint lines that bracketed the corners of his mouth had smoothed out.  Methos was content to watch him; to note the strong bones of his face and the sweep of his eyelashes, and the way his hair fell across his forehead.  Then he realized what he was doing, and switched his gaze to his own hands.  That was not something he needed right now, not when he was wanted by the Hegemony and dealing with the aftereffects of whatever it was that happened with his Quickening.  He needed to get to Castax, and then find another ship.  If nothing else, distance should serve to break the connection between them — and if that thought made Methos vaguely unhappy, he refused to admit it.  The last thing he needed or wanted right now was to fall for anyone, let alone a too-stubborn mortal with issues of his own, no matter how compelling the man was.  

Methos realized that he was looking again, and stood up, tempted to go in search of Julie.  He could monitor the ship from anywhere, after all. Nevertheless, a moment later, he was sitting back down, gaze drawn almost inevitably to Denis once more.

Denis was dreaming, vivid, flash-back intense. Dreams of a life not his that nevertheless felt achingly, desperately, exhilaratingly familiar.

…An older man, a bigger man, his master, his owner, pressing him down on the yielding surface of the couch, entering him, filling him, sparking pain, desire, ravening need, until he is meeting each thrust with a push of his own, writhing, moaning, stifling his cries of pleasure and shame, desperate for completion, for touch. Feeling with every fiber something intense that was neither love nor hate but partook of both in knotted measure…

…Sand-grit, sun-glare, heat an oppressive constant, thirst a nagging threat. A weapon filled his hand, heavy, deadly, red with the blood of many. Smoke-filled wind stings his eyes and behind him he hears the laughter and the shouts of his comrades, his brothers, his fellow-orphan-exiles, the freedom of the hunt, the delight of the raid: outwitting, out-running, out-fighting larger numbers, bigger men. There is water and a rich village over the next hill…

…Firelight, softness, kisses and comfort and clean, smooth sheets, clean, smooth skin. A music of Presence that resonates in his bones. Lying together, limbs tangled, in the luxurious aftermath of lovemaking, the pleasant stretched feeling of being well-fucked, the tingling memory of slick, tight heat, giving, receiving, equals in passion, in affection, in strength. The rumble of a loved voice following him into sleep, warding his dreams…

Threading through all these, and other flashes, fragments, moments, a sound, a name: Methos.

Methos alternated between watching the instruments and watching Denis sleep while trying — and failing — to pretend he was just keeping an eye on the man in case he had a delayed reaction to his brush with Methos' Quickening.  Denis was fascinating, a complex puzzle and a bundle of contradictions.  He seemed both incredibly strong and horribly fragile; altruistic in some ways and capable of ruthless expediency in others. Julie was probably essential to his stability, in much the same way that Silas had been essential to Methos' own.  

Denis was dreaming, his eyes moving back and forth behind closed lids, expression changing slightly as whatever he was seeing unfolded.  Methos watched him, waiting for any sign of a nightmare.  What he got was a smile, and Duncan MacLeod's name on Denis's lips.  It sent a chill through him, and Methos moved instantly to shake Denis awake, even though Julie had yet to return.  His memories of MacLeod — especially the ones in which he addressed the Highlander by his first name — were intensely personal and deeply precious.  He couldn't simply sit by and watch someone else go through them, even unintentionally.

Denis woke instantly, ripped from dim comfort shading to dim horror into bright glare and a Presence looming over him. He was off and behind the couch with the hideaway two-shot heylin out and hot under his thumb before he blinked the dazzle from his eyes. He hadn't made a sound, even his fall to the deck controlled. Adan — _Methos_ that was his True-name, a name of weight and power and unimaginable duration — had stepped right back, hands up and out and empty. There was an odd parallel to the first moment Denis had seen the man, but this time there was no mask to distract from the knowledge in his eyes and the honed and ageless danger of him. Without even thinking, Denis knew he had dreamed true, dreamed memory. And, however it came to be that Denis knew this, of the three crystal-sharp moments, the last was most nearly what Methos wished to be, a best-self, while the middle approached an efficient and pragmatic worst-self, and the first was … common ground. Adan ( _think of him as Adan; 'Methos' is no more to be used aloud than the name of his dark-haired, also-Immortal lover Duncan, both dangerous to speak_ ) was waiting for Denis to decide what to do, offering no threat, no challenge. As Denis lowered the heylin and straightened from his crouch, he thought he recognized/ as well a spark of rueful recognition in Adan's hazel eyes and felt the quirk of an almost-smile on his lips. 

Denis wasn't going to apologize for being startled, nor for the heylin. And even with the roil of adrenalin in his stomach and fizzing in his nerves, he wasn't going to indulge in pointless anger either. Finally Denis calmly, deliberately, put the heylin back in the hidey and raised his eyebrows in pointed inquiry. All without actually saying a word. He knew it for an intensely aggravating gesture, and was suddenly very curious to see how Adan responded.

Methos had seen reactions like Denis's before — had himself had centuries during which he'd reacted in much the same way.  It matched with the sense of him that Methos was now carrying in the back of his head, and with the flashes of memory he'd seen earlier.  There was a moment in which he thought he was about to give Denis an object lesson in Immortal healing, but then the man tucked the heylin away again.  Methos lowered his hands, even as Denis raised his eyebrows.  Methos was not entirely sure what to say.  After all, he didn't know how much of the dream Denis remembered.

"You were dreaming," he said anyway, after a moment's pause.  It was tempting to leave it at that, but keeping things to himself wouldn't help him to figure out a way to keep Denis out of his memories.  "Or — maybe remembering is a better word, though the memories were mine.  I thought it best to wake you up before you stumbled into something unpleasant instead."  He smiled thinly.  "Though that will likely prove inevitable, unless I can figure out what happened, and how to reverse it."  And never mind that the sense of Denis in the back of his head was already more comfortable than intrusive, easing the loneliness that had been part of him for as long as he could remember.

If anything, Denis's eyebrows rose higher, but all he said was "I … see." 

When Denis took a moment to dip into Pilot-mode (the nap had done him that much good — more than he had hoped, actually) and test the strange connection, it seemed to be solid, and there was a further sense of potential memory, an inchoate mass of imagery and sense, information and memory almost like it had poured into his head and now sought spaces in his own thoughts and memories to fit. Not a data-stream like the communications to a landing-field, more like the process by which the Pilot's Guildhouse updated starbooks, or the Captain's Guild updated flight regulations. He decided not to say anything. Organic rather than mechanical. 

The last memory had certainly been pleasant: a sense of love and acceptance and sheer, happy comfort that Denis had not personally known in his life, though a part of him had persisted in believing it could happen, and what he had with Julie was as close as possible, without the intimacy. The first memory, and the sense and implications of the second were anything but pleasant. It seemed to indicate that, despite the odd sense of 'other,' of connection, that Denis was beginning to realize was real, was a continuation of whatever it was they had experienced when Adan did whatever it was he had done to save them from destruction by the pirate and not just a left-over sense-memory, actual details were not (always) transmitted along the channel. That was certainly a relief. There were things in Denis's memories that he would not choose to submit anyone else to, certainly not someone he was already attracted to. Attracted to and terrifyingly inclined to trust. Over and above that they _had_ to trust him, at least until they got to Castax. Denis was _not_ going to think about that. Somewhat wryly he finally said, "Well, if it was an exchange, or is some kind of channel, I only hope that what you learn of me is no worse." 

Adan nodded, a little stiffly, and the tense line of his shoulders eased a fraction. He didn’t move to sit back down on the flight-couch, though. What ever this was between them, they were not at all done talking about it.

Perversely, Denis felt both obscurely comforted and stripped bare by the idea that Methos would have gotten memories from him. Gether was not the worst of Denis's past, but the similarity of the experience to Methos' with his own early master took any embarrassment from it. It even, to Denis's astonishment, drained much the shame from Denis's own recall. There was, after all, no going back, only forward.

Denis could hear Julie coming up the companionway. Time to get back to work. He wasn't actually relieved that further conversation must, by necessity, be put on hold.

“Cargo’s re-secured, and I took that one crate of hard-stuffs and put it in the end cabin. There was a pack and a sword in there.” Julie tilted an expression at Adan. “Yours, I assume. I put them both in the cabin next along under a net, so they wouldn’t go flying or creeping about.” Julie was not as grim-faced as he had been leaving, and Denis was relieved at that. “Harmonium’s going to want a thorough go-over, but there’s only one actual break, right where I thought, and I’ve switched that sequence out.”

Denis nodded in turn. “Good. Nothing here has changed, but I don’t like the way the tide is starting to interact with the mid-harmonics. That's going to get ugly soon. I think we should get going while we can.”

"Would you like to pilot her, or would you prefer that I did?" Methos asked. He was not about to ask if Denis was able to pilot her, as that would do more than anything else to goad the man to make the attempt whether he felt capable of it or not. In the pause before Denis answered, Methos nodded at Julie. 

"I appreciate your securing my things, especially my sword — though there are some things in the pack I'd hate to see damaged — mostly the books." He had some of his own journals in addition to a selection of reading material, all of it as irreplaceable as his sword.

Denis could perceive (it wasn’t as definite as ‘feel’ but not so nebulous as a mere impression) that Adan was being careful with him but also managing to do it in a way that did not make him want to reflexively do the riskiest thing. Denis _could_ pilot, and depending on Adan’s knowledge might have to, at least to start, but the way Adan asked gave Denis the mental space to think about it. 

Julie’s eyebrows were saying he was not unaware of the phrasing either, and for a moment Denis could not decide if he was irritated by or appreciative of the care. He knew he could be — was — difficult to live with, and a nap was hardly enough to repair the damage or give him more than a small measure of energy after the effort he had spent. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable at the best of times, but neither was he inclined to be stupid. Denis decided he was going to take it as a positive and not think about it more than he had to. Sighing a little, Denis leaned down to extract the thin Starbook that lived in the hidey with the two-shot, and then pull down both his other more conventional Starbooks from their slots.

“Do you know a Road from Decelea to Castax?”

* * *

Adan did know a road from Decelea to Castax, a Long Road, which none of them were up for. After a brief discussion, they decided to take a more round-about way, starting with one of Wrath-of-God's private roads that some long ago wag had named 'the slip-stream skedaddle with a paddle.' It was more of a trail than a road proper, and the place it lead to was a slowly dimming brown dwarf with a single, undersized rock of a planet. The Wrath used it as a kind of safe-house, emergency safe-route, out of the way spot for repair and emergency down-time, and the impromptu, sparsely detailed imagery of the Road reflected that expediency. They all needed rest, and the lifeless (but not Dead) system would give them that.

But the road, however short, was not one Adan knew. Denis would have to get them there. So he did, though he doubted he would have been able to without the peculiar connection with Adan, and the intangible energy that flowed over it. They barely skimmed into Purgatory, skipped along the symbolic rocks in the stream, and fell with an inaudible splash into the small, quiet backwater of the simple system. Julie was ready to catch Denis as he descended from the pilot's bridge, but Denis managed the ladder with a brittle care. Denis even succeeded in stripping out of the shipsuit before succumbing to the promised oblivion of his bunk, though he didn't remember to latch (or even properly close) the door to his cabin. They would cross the system in mundane space, taking their time about it. He could sleep safe.

The trip had left even Methos exhausted, despite the greater reserves of stamina he could tap into thanks both to his Immortality and to having learned long ago to drive himself past what would ordinarily have been the limits even of Immortal endurance. Nevertheless, wrung out as he was, the reflected energy of the Roads had also left him tightly wired, full of a restlessness that exhaustion did little to transform into an ability to sleep. His cabin was too small in which to pace, so as he couldn't make himself rest, he slipped out the door and wandered around the ship, taking care to stay away from he harmonium in case his Presence sent something askew. He'd seen which way Denis had gone upon leaving the bridge. He didn't realize that he'd followed the man until he found himself standing outside Denis's door. Denis had been entirely too tied up in Methos' Quickening for the latter's comfort, and concern for the effect that might have had prompted Methos to knock softly. When there was no immediate response, he pushed the panel further open, then slipped inside and pulled it shut before crossing the room to shake the other man gently awake. 

The unexpected touch jolted Denis awake just as it had earlier, but he had been far more deeply asleep. (His bed, his cabin, his ship, progressing uneventfully across a Wrath safe-space; too profoundly asleep even for dreams, though he half-expected to be haunted by the memory of Gether's hands.) His body refused to move, though his skin flinched under fingers he did not recognize, and his own hands curled reflexively around a fold of the bunk-cover. His cheek was pressed to the mattress, and beads of sweat prickled in the furrow of his spine, chill in the faint breeze of the air circulation. There was nothing wrong with _Sun-Treader_ — everything felt as it should there. Someone in his cabin. Not Julie. Julie would never grab him to wake him. Methos. Adan. Denis could not decide if he was relieved or frightened or irritated or pleased at the realization. Possibly a little of all of them. He made himself take a deep breath before he said anything. It was more difficult than usual. That stripped-and-vulnerable sense was back, nothing at all to do with the fact that he was quite literally naked. That Denis could use, if he had to.

"What?" Denis finally said, short and without as much bite as he would have liked. He could feel each separate pad of Adan's fingers on his shoulder, but he refused to jerk away. "What is it?"

"Sorry." Methos rarely apologized, but in this instance he was willing to do so. "I wanted to be sure that you were all right. After all, you spent a fair length of time in very close contact with something that isn't at all meant for mortals." He could still feel Denis, like a low hum in the back of his mind; not quite pre-Immortal, but definitely there. "I do apologize for startling you, but I wasn't sure what the effects would be." He shifted his hand from Denis's blanket-covered shoulder to his wrist, intending out of long habit to check Denis's pulse. 

As his fingers brushed Denis's skin, though, all thought of detachment vanished. The feel of Denis in the back of his mind suddenly sharpened, and the electric rush that flooded along his nerve endings and through his veins made his breath catch in his throat, his grip tightening momentarily as touch fed back the earlier connection, magnifying it, until the images in his mind's eye were vivid enough to feel. Methos made himself loosen his grip, but didn't let go entirely, absently stroking his thumb over the soft skin at the pulse-point. He felt a faint echo of the touch, but the sensation was only dimly important right now, compared to the brightness of the connection twining between and around them. He couldn't look away from Denis; didn't want to look away. He wanted to lean into him, to complete that last missing piece of whatever it was that was pulling them together; _was_ leaning forward, despite himself, aching for more with a sharp and sudden ferocity. 

Fragments of memory — tactile, sensory and sensuous, freighted with complex, quicksilver emotion — darted and sparkled in Methos' mind: a bony, imperious hand gripping his/Denis's thin shoulder, fingertips only just missing the bruises at his collarbone, the familiar dip of the bunk taking a man's weight, and the even more familiar press of heat and hardness against Denis's hip mixed with the reflexive kindling of want/repulsion, desire/dislike, love and hate, that stiffened his cock and had him spreading his legs with a bitten-back sound before Denis was even wholly awake; the uncomplicated, randy delight of wrestling with a very tall red-headed man, sliding into him with a gasp and a grin and the press of Denis's newly-minted Captain's medallion making a mark on both of them; a touchingly chaste memory of Julie putting him to bed after a difficult night of negotiating over strong drink; other images less distinct but no less arousing.

Gether had never, ever apologized, and subsequent bed-companions, whether lovers or marks or bed-comrades for sport had never had reason to. The sudden, visceral memory of Denis's first captain-master (apprenticed at 13, straight from Balthasar House, old enough to consent under Delosian law, old enough to sign the contract of ship-indenture giving over his person in return for training and a future among the stars) making free of Denis's sleep and skin and personal space, prelude to more intimate invasions both craved and feared, was over-written as Adan's hand slid from Gether's accustomed hold (and Denis hadn't reacted to that touch in more years than he cared to recall) down Denis's arm. Sparks trailed in the wake of Adan's fingers, and the murmur of his words, the sincerity of them, the intensity of care were a balm, a tonic, a rich draft of energy that banished sleep and the need for sleep. It was like being high in Purgatory, close to Heaven, the rush and otherness of it, Adan's very life-force vibrating with keen, pure music. 

_He was being kissed by a whirlwind of words, dark hair and bright laughter surrounding him; he was caught by a flash of green eyes as curls twined around his fingers and smiling lips under his own went from chatter to demanding, devouring silence; he was pressing into the beloved body of his brown warrior for the first time, both shuddering, both on the edge of ecstasy; he was arched like a bow, pain and pleasure a tumult as bright black eyes ravished him from above as he was pierced, filled, taken and turned inside out, an agony, an exultation of need, of desire, of connection._

Adan's fingers were at Denis's wrist, Denis could feel his pulse fluttering against that touch, his skin burned, and he was achingly aroused, desperate for more of Adan's — of _Methos'_ — touch than that. Methos' lips were a breath from his own and the blanket was an unbearable barrier between them. Without thought, Denis twisted out from under the bedclothes and reached for Methos, threading a hand through the hair at Methos' nape like his fingers were coming home.

The feel of Denis's fingers on the vulnerable nape of his neck wrung a gasp of pleasure from Methos. It was as if the touch has completed a circuit somehow, sending whatever part of his Quickening was tying them together pouring through them both. Methos could no more stop himself from closing the last few inches between them than he could have kept himself from falling for Duncan, or Alexa, or any of a myriad of others down the years, all those long centuries ago. He released Denis's wrist entirely to cradle the man's face with both hands, kissing him deeply, hungrily, as if he could live on kisses alone, one hand sliding down to flatten against Denis's chest, over his heart. 

When Adan-Methos' hand pressed over Denis's heart and their lips met, it was like being struck by lightning. (Not just analogy, but actual: somehow Denis's flesh knew the sear and crackle of lightning, nothing like a stunner-bolt, white fire burning along every nerve, through every shield, shaken and shattered by the electrical tempest, yet not destroyed, taking in the energy of it, and emerging still himself at the end.) Denis heard himself make a sound that was nothing but need as he felt Methos' tongue beg entrance and he welcomed the slick urgency of it with his own. He had no barriers to this man, (just as, did Julie ever ask, he would have none against him either - and for the first time there was no terror in that knowledge,) and all he wanted was to hold on, even as he was held, the connection between them more necessary than breath in the moment. Like falling up into the near reaches of Heaven, and he wanted it never, ever to end, even as he knew it must. 

Denis tugged at the blanket between them, the cloth of Adan's tunic, until he too had his hands on skin, feeling the race of Methos' heart. (A tiny, irrepressible corner of Denis mind observed that there was no way that Adan would be left behind on Castax or anywhere else in the immediate future.) 

Methos climbed properly onto the bunk, straddling Denis's lap while he deepened the kiss, breaking away only long enough to shrug off his tunic before returning to Denis, his hands running hungrily over the smooth skin and lean muscle of Denis's torso. The change in position brought his own erection into contact with Denis's, and the answering heat and hardness made his hips roll forward. He hadn't wanted anyone like this in years, maybe in centuries.

Denis gasped as their urgent erections kissed through the smooth fabric of Adan's leggings, and he opened his thighs without thought or hesitation, tilting his own hips in invitation, shuddering with need and the urgent desire to be taken. (Denis thoroughly enjoyed being fucked, but it wasn't something he allowed himself very often, and rarely indeed without calculation. This was pure sensate need, nothing of calculation in it, and Denis could not recall the last time he felt this free of constraint, of the necessity of knowing the odds, manipulating the shifting rules of dealer, player, grey-market conjurer, always quicksilver and smoke, hiding the tarnished, damaged, true-silver core.) Denis's hands slid from fevered exploration of the planes and hollows of Adan's chest to catch at his waist, his hips and pull him closer. 

"Yes," Denis said with a gasp, "Yes, stars, yes." _Take me. Take all of me. Yes._

Methos leaned down to kiss him again, Denis's urgency feeding his own desire, the energy building between them almost entirely blotting out the rest of the world. He ran a hand down Denis's chest, reveling in the feel of it beneath his fingers and in the feel of Denis beneath him, solid and alive and wanting him with a strength he himself could actually feel. This was not the Quickening-tie he'd had with Duncan, or even the bond he'd had with Kronos: both had constricted him, and begun to chafe after a time. This was an expansion of the self, to embrace something beyond his experience, a liberation as much as a binding, and in that moment entirely welcome. He kissed Denis's jaw, the line of one collarbone, the hollow of his throat, not teasing so much as exploring, unwilling to miss anything despite the hunger driving them both. 

"Tell me what you want," he murmured, watching Denis's face intently, even as one hand traced along Denis's stomach, then slid back up, up, circling one nipple without quite touching it. Methos - and he was _Methos_ here, not Adan, or any of the other, countless masks he'd worn for so long, which made this as dangerous as any Challenge, albeit in a different way — thrusting gently forward again, breath coming faster despite his efforts at controlling it.

Denis arched up into Methos' kisses, (and he knew somehow that this was the man's true-self, the white-hot flame of spirit wrapped in form that might be from the very morning of humankind, nothing mundane about either,) nearly frantic for each touch, each breath that painted lines of light, of fire and wonder and the glorious agony of knowing he, Denis Balthasar — orphan, pirate, sham and smooth talker, not wholly anything he appeared, no more one thing than another, just like his ship, only with his keel flawed at the core — was more real, more present, more entirely seen and accepted, _desired_ than he had ever been before. He wanted it all. He wanted that flame within himself. Methos' cock slid hard against his own, and Denis bit his lip to stop a sob of need. Not on the outside, however marvelous the friction. "In me," he managed, a thread of sound. " _Take_ me, _please_."

The raw need in Denis's voice was echoed in the emotion flowing between them, and Methos answered it with another kiss, this one deep and hungry, demanding, even as his hands continued their exploration of Denis's body, sword-calluses rough against smooth skin. "Do you have anything?" he asked breathlessly, unwilling to cause unwanted pain despite the force of their desire.

In that moment, Denis did not care if Methos used no more that spit and sweat to ease the way, but he answered the note in Methos' voice that said it mattered to him, freeing a hand to fumble for the palm-latch on the cubby in the bulkhead. His fingers were shaking so much it was hard to hold the tube of gel-lotion and he didn't even attempt to flip up the seal. He was unexpectedly, astonishingly grateful to feel Methos' fingers close over his, squeezing gently before taking the stuff. The shudders had rippled out from Denis's hands, from the hollow under his ribs, and he was trembling all over with need, anticipation, something he could not even name. "Here," he said, arching again, palms blindly sliding over Methos' skin until the curve of hip gave purchase. " _Please_ ," and this time it was a sob, but Denis did not care, because Methos' was sliding slick and expert fingers between his legs and pressing him open. 

Denis plucked and pushed at the waistband of Methos' leggings until he'd freed Methos' erection, working himself eagerly on Methos' fingers, relishing the unhesitating thrust and twist and curl stretching him, exploring him inside and out. Methos' breath was coming fast, and the sound he made when Denis eased back his foreskin to swirl a gentle fingertip through the bead of liquid welling at the tip made Denis shudder all over again with need-desire. When Methos withdrew his fingers, Denis cried out, hips moving, already missing the force of them.

Methos did not leave Denis waiting long, He pressed in, slow and careful and inexorable, the feel of him a physical relief, filling the empty ache left behind by his fingers. Methos entered all the way in, stretching him wide, piercing deep, sending shocks and waves of glorious fullness rolling through him, and Denis met him without reservation. Every thrust hit that place that sparked ecstasy, and they moved together until Denis could hardly tell where he ended and Methos began, feeling both gripped fast and comprehensively impaled, surrounded with slick heat and filled with impossible hardness. Both of them were sobbing for breath, wet and writhing with effort and the driving need for more friction, more fullness, more closeness, more everything as bodies and spirits both strove for completion.

Then Denis was convulsing, entirely undone, held together only by Methos' presence, pinned on his cock, gripped in his hand, pierced and shattered by the lightning that coruscated between them, bright behind Denis's eyelids, celestial force, invisible to mundane eyes in ordinary space. 

Methos was coming too, long pulses that shook him, that seemed to come from the roots of his being and course along every nerve, sparking from his skin, drawn like molten wire through him to charge the very air and wrap the two of them in unseen flame.

For a long moment after, they lay together, listening to the gradual slowing of their pounding hearts, the easing of ragged breath. There didn't seem to be words, only the language of twined limbs, of flesh touching flesh, fingertips and lips and the descending shocks of the aftermath of ecstasy, the reverberations of strain released. 

When Methos withdrew, his Presence went with him, leaving Denis suddenly, sharply empty, and so far past exhaustion that it hurt. But even empty, he knew he was not alone, not abandoned. Denis did not know if he managed to say or merely wish "Don't leave" before he was pulled down into unconsciousness. 

Methos more felt than heard the soft protest Denis made as Methos' cock slipped from between his cheeks, separating them both physically and closing the more intangible connection to a mere thread of awareness without image or emotion. He no more wanted to leave Denis than Denis wanted to be left. After taking a moment to clean them both up a little and put his leggings to rights, Methos curled back down on the narrow bunk with Denis in his arms, letting his own thoughts drift until he knew that Denis was deeply asleep and would not waken at Methos getting up and going. 

Even so, Denis murmured something that sounded suspiciously like an endearment as Methos bent to brush his lips against Denis's temple before putting his clothes to rights, and actually slipping out the door. He could not stay, he needed to think, to try to figure out what he was going to do now.

* * *

Julie knew every note and sound that _Sun-Treader_ made in mundane space or purgatory, every whisper of the atmospherics, every tap and creak and whine of the myriad simple (and not so simple) systems that made the ship a living thing and not mere dross perched on a tinctured keel. He knew the different qualities of silence that spoke more of Denis's mood and state than ever did his words. The quiet Julie felt now was not a familiar one, though the events of the entire span since they had left Athos Maria were hardly ordinary, and whatever it was that Adan had done (and it had been Adan, though Denis had inexplicable had a part in it too) to avert catastrophe was still ringing faintly in Julie's bones, in the deep lattices of the keel, in every part of the ship that had ever been touched by higher Art. Chasing down the Dead Road and taking stock amidst the clamor and disharmony of Decelea had not settled those notes, though Julie had thought the high reaches of purgatory on the way to their current bolt-hole had tuned them somewhat, given a human scale to what had been both more alien and more achingly, exquisitely familiar than anything Julie had experienced.

Denis should be sleeping. Should — would, if Julie had any say in the matter, which he did — be out for hours, all the way across the system. That was the point of coming here after all. If he had any sense, Adan would be doing the same. Julie did not really know the man well enough to say. What he did know was that even before their disastrous almost-arrival at Castax, Denis had been attracted to Adan, and Julie was nearly certain it was mutual. Julie was a long way from Kesse, and the attendant cultural expectations of modesty and aligning both social and interpersonal arrangements with the strictures of the Alchemical Marriage of opposites, and all those other things a gently born son was raised with. It had been a fair time since Julie had been shocked at Denis's propensity for bed-sport, or that he liked men as much or more than women. Julie even knew Denis found _him_ attractive, and the fact that Denis had never really pushed that issue said a lot about how important Julie was to him. Not to mention that marriage idea that Denis had floated as a solution to the problem of Julie's papers. 

As for Julie himself, well, he could hardly ignore the heart-clench he had felt seeing Denis all but collapsed on the pilot's bridge. The man was secretive, abrasive, promiscuous, arrogant — and Julie could not imagine a life without him in it. He'd recognized the look in Adan's face because he'd see it in his own, did he look in a mirror.

Julie tucked the last fold of the flight-netting into the pocket above the emergency couch in the pilot's bridge and looked around. Everything was tidy and quiet, the repeater-board showing stand-by, the tell-tales in the wheel dim. The main bridge was equally ship-shape, the Ficinan model turning slowly as they progressed through the system, the main screen hardly more active. _Sun-Treader_ was perfectly capable of sailing to the position they had mapped to try again for Castax without any interference from her crew. Julie wasn't going to sleep, not with Denis out cold and the still largely unknown quantity of Adan as third, however impromptu and full of surprises. He could come to trust him, very nearly already did on some level, but he didn't know him well enough yet. Julie was surprised to realize he wanted to get to know him. 

Well. If Adan wasn't sleeping, perhaps they could have something like an ordinary conversation. Julie climbed down from the pilot's bridge and left _Sun-Treader_ to the auto-pilot. He'd check on Denis first, then get some caff and relax in the commons for a while.

When Julie reached Denis's cabin, it appeared he was not alone. A low voice that was not Denis's murmured something behind the door (and when had Julie learned Denis's voice so well he knew that without question?) A knot of feeling tangled in Julie's stomach. What Denis needed was _rest_ , not more complications. There were quiet rustles of cloth and the subtle pitch-change that was the latch disengaging. Julie leaned his shoulders against curve of bulkhead at the end of the corridor across from the door, taking a deep breath, trying to find the calm that he'd had after they reached Decelea. Dammit. They didn't need this on top of everything else.

Methos slipped out the door of Denis's cabin, closing it gently behind himself. He didn't want to wake Denis - didn't particularly want to leave the man, even though he was sleeping. Still, the need to process what was happening between them was paramount. Methos hadn't intended to act on the physical attraction he'd felt from the first moments of their acquaintance, much less to tangle the man up in his Quickening like he had - and he certainly hadn't intended to let Denis in so very far, past all but the innermost walls he kept between himself and the rest of the world. Intentions, though, have very little to do with events, and having let Denis in, Methos was finding it impossible to evict him again. As with Alexa so many years ago, the strength of his own emotions was a surprise, and far greater than his ability to ignore said emotions. Moreover, it had been Adam Pierson who'd fallen for Alexa. She had never known Methos. Denis, though, was inside *Methos'* head and heart, and Methos was beginning to realize that the unintentional had changed everything for him as permanently as Alexa had for Adam. He needed some space, needed to *think*, and couldn't do anything of the sort with Denis sprawled naked on the bed only a few short inches away. It seemed, though, that he was going to have to do his thinking later. He didn't need to turn his head to know that Julie was watching him, or to know that the engineer was less than pleased by this latest development. He did turn, once the door was closed, and lift an eyebrow at Julie.

The cat-with-the-cream expression on Adan's face was the very twin of the one Julie had seen on Denis's more than once, and the cocky, shameless, infuriating 'Yeah? What of it?' silent quirk of an eyebrow was no less aggravating than when Denis did it. Julie could not decide who he was more angry with: Adan, Denis, or himself and the perversity of a universe that gave rise to such chaos, but furious he was. Abruptly, Julie decided he wasn't going to just let it go. There was something here that mattered, a pressure in his chest like a sounding keel in too-close proximity, an impending dissonance. It didn't help that Adan was positively radiating the satisfied air and smug languor of the thoroughly well laid and beautiful with it. Julie did not doubt for a moment that Denis was in the same state, however fleeting that satisfaction and relaxation might be — and Julie could not wish anything less for him, not really. But he wasn't at all sure he could bear to see it just now either. Too many words crowded in Julie's throat but none seemed able to reach his tongue. He felt his fists clench, the muscle in his jaw, and made himself breathe again, deliberately. Open his hands flat against the cool metal of the wall. Finally, Julie said in a low voice that seemed drug up from the deck-plates, "What were you thinking? We need him able to fly not too many hours from now." _If you've hurt him…_ He managed to stop himself from actually saying that thought, though the words burned in his mind, somehow feeling like they indicted himself as much as they did Adan.

Methos' other eyebrow lifted to join the first, and he studied Julie for a moment before answering. There was jealousy there, though whether Julie was aware of its existence was uncertain, but the main consideration driving the engineer was clearly concern for Denis, which made annoyance impossible for Methos to hold onto. "I don't see any reason why twenty or thirty minutes should make a difference as to whether or not he's gotten enough rest," he pointed out, more mildly than he'd intended, with a glance at Denis's door that he hadn't intended at all. "Shall we take this to the common room? I don't want to wake him any more than you do." 

"Yeah." More a sound of assent than a word, but Julie was in agreement about not disturbing Denis, even if he was finding himself hard-pressed to hold onto his normally even temper. He pushed away from the wall, somehow aware of his body as he rarely was, and it seeming like it hardly fit - feeling as awkward and uncomfortable in his skin as the year he had grown three inches in two seasons. The common room and more importantly the galley were only steps away, and the deck was unsteady underfoot, as sticky as purgatory. "I'll make some caff," Julie said, feeling/hearing Adan move behind him and then past, going over to the chairs.

Julie's emotions were in no better state than his flesh. Adan's cool sophistication, utter, casual comfort with himself, with Denis, with having sex with Denis, was a sharp reminder to Julie of the first time he'd been on Delos, feeling ignorant, provincial, clumsy and out of his depth in the wake of older, laughing, quicksilver shipmates. Denis had never made him feel that way, for all he was even more finely built and effortlessly bright than the men on his father's freighter, and a native citizen of the place. 

The caff brewer was Delos-made. Maybe that explained its temperamental nature. Fortunately Julie's hands knew its quirks and could get on with the task without much in the way of attention from Julie. "It's not the twenty minutes," Julie said after a long moment of silence. "It's spending energy he doesn't have. It's not wanting him hurt." _It's him always pushing, ignoring the fact that his flesh has limits, even if his mind doesn't. That he believes his body exists to do his will, and he hates when it fails him, or holds him back. It's him thinking some kinds of pain are just the way things are, that it doesn't matter if it's just him, nothing to pay attention to._

Finally, with the device making the familiar soft phut-phut-phut that meant the brew was coming along, Julie found himself speaking in a voice he hardly recognized, it was so full of inchoate feeling, "I love him, dammit, and I will not have him fucked over. Not again. Not on my watch."

For long moments, the silence was broken only by the sounds of brewing caff. Finally, Methos drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking across the table at Julie and putting aside not only Adan, but even Methos, who was as much a mask as any other, albeit a truer one. What was left was simply himself, the nameless truth at the core of him, ancient and young at the same time, as vulnerable as he was deadly, with all of the griefs and joys and sins and virtues that uncounted millennia had created, and when he did speak it was with a quiet gravity that met and acknowledged both the truths Julie had given him and the cost of speaking those truths out loud. "I was married once to a woman who was dying. She was dying when I met her, while I courted her, when I married her, and for the entire six months we had as man and wife. I never told her what I was, though I wanted to, almost as much as I wanted more time with her. I still dream about her, though she's been dead longer than Earth has been abandoned."

Methos looked down at his hands, then back up at Julie. "I should have told her - and you should tell him. Neither of you is terminally ill, but you're both mortal, and life is so incredibly short and so awfully fragile. I wish I could say that I'll step aside for you, but the truth is that I don't know if I can. I mentioned Alexa because Denis reminds me of her - you both do - but even if he didn't, I don't play casual games with mortals, not any more. You're too important for that. I'll stay as long as he lets me, even though I know in the end, one way or another, he'll leave me behind, because even six months — six hours — are worth it. And if he tells me to go after you tell him how you feel, even then, it will have been worth it — especially if he tells me to go because of you. I want him to be happy, no matter what it costs. Whatever happened on the bridge put him in my head and under my skin, and I wouldn't hurt him any more than I'd space myself, because I couldn't bear feeling his his pain. And your pain hurts him, which means I can't bear that, either. So *tell him*, because I won't give him up for anything less. I don't want to give him up at all." He gave Julie the ghost of a smile. "I'd be glad of the chance to keep even a small part of him, if he wanted to give me that much — and of the chance to have a part of you as well, because I can't help but feel the way he feels about you; I know you because he does, and — since I'm giving you the unvarnished truth — I want you, in part for the same reason." 

Julie had come over to the grouping of chairs as Adan spoke, settling on the edge of the cushion-chair feeling both terrified and somehow set free by what he'd said. Adan's face, his voice, his whole presence and shape in the air were subtly different, deeper somehow, as if a fundamental chord had been allowed to resolve, be heard, instead of only hinted at incompletely. Julie had no trouble at all believing that Adan was as old as he said he was. But what really struck Julie was how much Adan reminded him of Denis in that inner nakedness; Denis asleep, vulnerable, unguarded, the weight of experience and age unfiltered by the intensity of his spirit. Julie clearly heard the truth in what Adan was saying, understood the sheer privacy of the story to be a gift. Difficult, spiky, uncomfortably intimate, but nevertheless resonating as _right_ , as real, something that vibrated like the lowest note of a perfectly balanced harmonium singing to a perfectly tuned keel. The sheer intensity of it all made Julie have to look away from Adan's eyes (green-gold rather than green-blue, but just as changeable, just as compelling) and focus on his own hands. Big, blunt, engineer's hands, that he'd had to learn to be gentle with. Denis didn't let go of things that mattered to him, however oblique or odd or invisible his tenacity might seem. Julie could still feel, ghost-like, Denis's grip on his shoulder the day they heard the news that Kesse had fallen. His words had been an airy and impractical response to the issue, but the touch had said he was is complete earnest.

"Denis doesn't abandon people. Not people who matter to him." Julie made himself look up again. "I'd say you're in that category." _And I know — have known since before the Rusadir fell — that I do too. Why do I only really believe it all the way down now? _But truly believe he now did. Julie met Adan's serious, fathomless eyes. "I will. Tell him. Pretty sure he knows, probably knew before I did, whether or not he believes it. But I'll tell him. When he's awake."__

The caff was brewed. Needing to move, Julie stood and went over to pour two mugs. In the small silence, he tried to put words to feelings, entirely new concepts. He was used to the idea of physical attraction — of people finding him attractive — though he hadn't ever acted on it for his part, but this, this raw, important thing was so much more than that. "I'm, I'm not sure what I do want, where you are concerned, but you leaving isn't. And …" unvarnished truth deserved, _required_ , truth in return. "I'd like to try. See what happens." A wry smile tugged at a corner of Julie's mouth. "Denis is greedy," there was that helpless affection again, the same note that Adan's voice held, "he'll want us both." And somehow that thought was not nearly as uncomfortable as it might have been.

Methos smiled faintly, letting Julie see the relief in his expression and in the lessening of the tension that lay along his shoulders. It was sometimes harder to show genuine emotion than feigned, but he'd already decided that he owed Julie the truth of himself. "In that case, I suppose I'm greedy as well, because I want both of you." He took a sip of his own caff, burned his tongue again, and grimaced, putting his cup down while his mouth healed and stretching to work the last lingering stiffness out of his limbs. "But you and Denis need to make that decision together. If it were up to me..." His smile widened, and the look he gave Julie was openly appreciative, "I'd start experimenting now to see if I couldn't help you decide what you wanted from me." Sobering, he shrugged. "Denis would see that as a betrayal on both of our parts, though, and I'll not do that to him, no matter how much I'd like to." 

Julie could not help but smile a little at Adan owning himself greedy too. He did not miss the tiny flicker of decision, of effort, that preceded Adan's letting him see the tension ease in his face, the strain uncoil in his hands. Another way Adan was like Denis, masking his feelings and thoughts by long habit, making truth harder to show than not. That Adan was clearly willing to make that effort made it easier for Julie to take the information in good part, even the rather startlingly suggestive suggestion. Julie focused on the clear sincerity of Adan's desire not to cause Denis pain — which matched Julie's own, and answered the question Julie had needed to know — rather than let himself think too hard about the embarrassment creeping up his neck or the heat in his cheeks. Denis wouldn't be bothered by the sex — likely he'd be gleefully smug about Julie finally getting laid — but if there were any question of Adan taking advantage, that would be another matter entirely. But Julie did not have any words to explain that, and he decided not to try. Instead he nodded, and found a truth of his own to share. "I've never," Julie said quietly, eyes on the brown depths of his cup, "with anyone." He knew he was blushing furiously, and he felt very exposed. He stumbled on, wanting Adan to understand. Not for some principle, or prudery, or, or, inability, just, I wanted, _want_ , it to, I don't know, mean something. Matter." Julie stopped, throat tight. For a long moment there was only the quiet sound of the ship, the faint hum of the harmonium stopped down to system-transit, hardly perceptible at all.

"That's not terribly unusual, you know," Methos said gently, after a moment's pause. "It just means that when you do, you won't have any memories to regret." He shoved away the memories of his own that threatened to rise, of the things he'd done and had done to him, still visceral even with - in some cases - the distance of ages between the event and the small, neat room in which he sat. None of them needed to be shared with Julie, not then.

There was a note in Adan's voice that made Julie look up from his mug, and he was struck once again with the contradictions of the man. The smooth lines of his face, the color of his hair, the ease with which he lounged in the basket-chair all spoke of youth; but the song he had been in purgatory — that Julie could almost hear even yet — and the vibration that underlay his voice were old, older than Julie could properly imagine, though not older than he could believe. Impulsively, Julie reached for Adan's hand, but hesitated before actually touching, finished the gesture anyway, fingertips just brushing Adan's. "I don't regret that you are here. I hope I — we — don't give you reason to regret being here." Julie's fingers tingled where they met Adan's, as if they were charged, vibrating with subtle, inaudible notes. 

Methos blinked, startled in spite of himself at the almost protective note in Julie's voice. He turned his own hand over, matching the other man's gesture, and smiled, bemused and more than a little touched by the idea that he might be considered to be in need of that sort of concern. "I can't imagine regretting you or Denis," he admitted. "Even if you'd only given me a safe haven, I'd owe you a debt of gratitude. The rest of it..." He smiled again, letting all of the unexpected delight he'd stumbled into show in his face. "The rest of it is the sort of gift that's a rarity even in a life as long as mine."

Adan's unfettered joy was like a blow over Julie's heart, beautiful and terrifying both. What really took him by surprise was the ferocity of Julie's own desire to see Denis as happy, that free. It seemed, somehow, more possible now that he might see that, with Adan in the mix. The only thing he could think of to say in response was "Thank you. And you are welcome." 

In the small silence after Julie spoke there was a tiny shift in the ambient pitch. Julie cocked his head to listen, then shook himself, turning his attention to the larger reality of ship and system. At Adan's inquiring eyebrow, Julie said, "We've crossed the line to the inner system. If we were making planetfall, we'd start tuning to the planetary harmony. As it is, we'll 'push' against the solar harmonies until we've reached this point on the other side of the primary. We're about a third the way across." Julie pressed Adan's hand where their palms still touched. "You should get some sleep yourself. You'll both be busy on the Road out of here."

Before Methos could say anything in response to that, there was a sensation in his head both alike and very different from the presence of a pre-immortal, unlike especially in the clear impression of _Denis_ that came with it. Shaking his head did not dislodge the feeling, nor did it fade away after a moment as an ordinary 'buzz' would. Instead it vibrated in his own Presence, as if in tune with it. Methos had never known anything quite like it. 

Julie noticed Adan tilt his head as if listening to something only he could hear. The pitch-transition had gone perfectly smoothly; there was no disharmony in the new hum. That was obviously not what Adan was attending to. "What? Adan, what is it?"

Adan answered abstractedly, "It's Denis. He's awake."

* * *

From one moment to the next, Denis woke. Wisps of vivid dreams stayed with him, thought and sense-impressions sharp enough to cut, crystalline memories. He could still feel the too-light, too-fleeting weight of a head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, a terribly fragile hand holding his with unlooked-for, unexpected strength, and a breathless, beloved voice saying, "Silly Adam. Wouldn't want you to die for me, want you to live." That dream-memory had been overlain but not banished by a much darker clamor of bitter-tasting struggles: the blood-wet handle of a whip in his hand and a defeated back before him; rigid, unwilling bodies under his, the cold ring of coin on many different tables and surfaces, and the sticky sense of use; fleeting mastery, angry pleasure, bad bargains; a regal, dark-haired woman twisting away from him, spitting in his face. They were all the inverse of the first dream-memory: taking rather than being taken, but threaded through with the same conflict of feelings. The flicker of those harsh images were banished by the grip of the frail hand still in his, by a gruff, melodious voice connected to a glimpsed presence that made Denis think of Julie, a Julie old and white-haired but solidly grounded, unfailingly, unflinchingly true. And all the dream-fragments had been scattered by a vibration that skittered along his nerves like drops of cold water, _Sun-Treader_ riding the rings of music that made up the space between the planets and the stars, crossing into the immediate influence of the local primary. Just because this time the pitch-change did not signal need for him to be getting to the bridge, preparing for landing, didn't keep it from acting as an alarm-signal.

It hurt to think, to breathe, to even imagine moving. Julie was going to _kill_ him. (No, he wouldn't, Julie didn't do that kind of rhetoric, even in jest. Julie would get that thundercloud look, and then his shoulders would droop just a fraction as he sighed. Disappointment was worse than anger. Methos was not in the bunk with him, though Denis knew he had stayed for some little time. There was a peculiar sense that hummed like the chord of the pilot's gateway, entirely separate from the exhaustion that virtually paralyzed his limbs, that Denis knew was an awareness of Methos. There was a resonance to it that implied it went both ways. There were spaces in his head that had not been there before they had come together, before Methos had done what ever it was he had done to save them all from that blast. 

Oddly, there was even a very faint note that sang of Julie in the mix as well, the barest echo of the great chord that had sounded when it seemed as if _Sun-Treader_ and all aboard her had turned inside out, transformed into something entirely new. It was so much what Denis wanted that he could not bring himself to believe it other than an artifact of his desire, not really true at all.

For neither the enervation nor the connection with Methos touched the ache in him that was his love and desire for Julie. He was too strung out to push the thought away, the fear that washed up from his toes at the idea of loosing him. He wanted, _needed_ both of them. It was too much to hope that he might have both the way his spirit craved. A flash of memory/fantasy/dream: fucked and fucking/sucked, pressed hard between two fiercely desired/beloved hard bodies, hardly knowing where he ended and they began, the three of them thoroughly entwined. The image was seductive, and the very wanting of it kept Denis from letting sleep suck him back down to oblivion, however much he needed it.

* * *

Methos put aside his caff, smiling crookedly at Julie. "If you'll excuse me? I'm going to go check on him, and see if I can't get him to go back to sleep for a little while longer." It was more than that; with Denis awake and present in the back of his mind, the desire to see the man was an almost physical pull. "If you need someone on the bridge in the next little bit, I can do it - if that's all right with you, anyway." He ran his fingertips lightly across Julie's palm, a fleeting caress that would hopefully not be too pushy, or unwanted, but that would remind without words that Julie, too, was desired, physically and emotionally. The faint sparks of Quickening-fire that trailed in the wake of his fingertips were unexpected, but not disturbing, either in fact or in their implications, and Methos repeated the gesture once more, a little more slowly, before pushing his chair back and standing.

Julie looked at the brief sparks winking between his fingers with bemusement. They didn't tickle, but he couldn't begin to describe the sensation they did produce. He felt startlingly cherished, and even though he knew they were not magus-lights — neither illusion or substance produced by the Art — there was a long-forgotten child in him that was delighted at the magic of it, the gift to _him_. (That long-ago boy had never entirely forgiven that so-proud magus in his brilliant robes for so deliberately and comprehensively snubbing all the children of the house by denying them even the smallest illusion, when the previous magus had been generous with his Art. Julie had been too young to leave the nursery then, and while he soon learned to accept that the magi were never to be depended on for something other than what they themselves chose to do, that moment had stuck with him.)

But Adan was not a magus, however amazing. "How do you know? That Denis is awake?" Julie did not doubt that Adan did know, but this entire trip had been flying far from Julie's ken. "Course is set and steady for several hours yet, nothing I can't manage from engineering, or even from here. And if you can get him to go back to sleep, I will take that as a favor." Anything that would give Denis the chance to get enough rest would be a good thing. Cock-sure, secretive, even abrasive Denis could be annoying, but grey-faced and shaking with exhaustion and strain was deeply frightening. "You should get some rest yourself."

Methos shrugged, uncertain as to how to put into words a certainty that was essentially beyond speech. "I can feel him," he said finally. "Much the same way I can feel the Roads, or another of my kind." He ran his fingers back over Julie's palm, the sparks more pronounced this time as he concentrated on the ghostly connection he could feel between them. "I used the energy that keeps me alive to protect the ship, earlier, and Denis got tangled up in it." He hesitated for a moment, habit warring with the knowledge that anything less than truth would damage the foundations he wanted to lay between the three of them, before elaborating. "It's not something mortals are meant to touch, and though it hasn't harmed him, it has created a link of some kind between us. I know what he's feeling, and it's given me some of his memories - and I'm very much afraid it goes both ways." He took a deep breath, and added, "You might have gotten caught in it too, though to a lesser extent." He hadn't intended to tell Julie that that last until he was sure, but he didn't want Julie asking why he was afraid of Denis's being able to see his memories. He couldn't imagine either of them being anything but horrified by some of the uglier parts of his past, or that they would be willing to be tied to Death, no matter how tightly Methos controlled that part of himself, and the thought of their revulsion was surprisingly painful. 

Julie's eyebrows climbed upward as he looked between the electric prickles of light and the tense lines of Adan's face. He'd never imagined such a thing, but as improbable as it was, Adan spoke it for truth. Julie had certainly been caught up in that indescribable moment when the the ship had seemed made entirely of light and sound, present but intangible, the ravening bolt from the other ship a terrible cacophony that somehow passed through the lines, forced into tune with the great Song _Sun-Treader_ had become. He had felt caught up like a star in a net, the right chord in the right place, playing the harmonium as if it were an extension of himself, without thought, only being, doing, becoming. Slowly, Julie put his thoughts into words. "Those sparkles wouldn't happen if I wasn't part of it too. And I wouldn't be reading you like I do Denis, after less than a day's acquaintance. Hunh." 

Julie pushed himself up out of the chair and stretched. "Take some getting used to, I suppose. I'm sure we've all got things in our heads that don't bear looking at, but no hiding them, any more than you can hide in purgatory."

Methos managed the ghost of a smile. "There's a difference between Purgatory's shadows and reliving a memory, unfortunately. I've forgotten some things, but everything I do remember, I remember as vividly as if it had happened this morning." He made himself meet Julie's eyes, despite his uncertainty as to what Julie might see in his face. "If Denis says anything to you — or if you end up seeing something yourself — I hope you'll let me make what explanations I can, even if it seems to be something entirely beyond the pale."

Methos shrugged, dismissing the subject for the moment. "Right now, though, I'd best go and look in on Denis." This time, his smile was much warmer. "I am glad I ended up on this ship," he admitted, before turning and slipping out the door. He made his way back to Denis's cabin, knocking softly before opening the door and letting himself inside. Crossing the room, he sat down on the edge of the bunk, hesitating for a moment before reaching out a hand to smooth a lock of greying brown hair back from Denis's forehead. "Go back to sleep," he said quietly. "We've a few hours yet before you'll be needed on the bridge again."

Julie watched Adan duck into Denis's cabin, taken aback all over again. He honestly could not say what he felt about Adan falling into their life, except that it seemed certain that things would not be as they had been. He had intended to look in on Denis himself, but instead leaned back against the bulkhead and scrubbed a hand through his hair with a sigh. That had been a retreat if he'd ever seen one. On one hand it was nice to know that unimaginably long life did not exempt one from human feelings and fears. On the other, Julie could not begin to guess what kinds of memories — sharp as the moment they happened — might lurk in that span, mundane or frightening, extraordinary or simply alien. Whatever they were, Adan was worried at how he (and Denis, but it seemed that Julie's possible reaction was the greater concern) would take them. Well, nothing at all Julie could do about the situation on any level at the moment. With another sigh, he shook the thoughts away and went forward to the bridge again.

* * *

The movement of the air as the cabin door slid open alerted Denis, and for a moment he could not tell if it was Julie or Adan/Methos who stepped in. He wasn't even sure which of them he wanted, since on some level he wanted both of them. Denis knew it was Methos even before he sat on the edge of the bunk. Methos' words were less expressive than his touch, but some innate, perverse impulse prompted him to murmur, "Where's Julie?" even as he turned his cheek into Methos' hand.

"On his way to the bridge," Methos answered, realizing with a start that he _knew_ the answer, just as he'd known that Denis was awake. Evidently, the connection between himself and Julie was stronger than he'd realized. The implications were disturbing, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment - perhaps nothing he could do about it at all, save for moving on, a thought that filled him with reluctance. It had been a terribly long time since he'd made even a superficial connection with anyone, and far longer since he'd been able to do so with people who knew him for anything other than mortal. He hadn't quite understood how isolated he'd become, or how very much he'd needed not to be. Despite his worries over what Denis and Julie might find out through the accidentally-established link to his Quickening, the end of that isolation was an almost physical relief. Keeping all of that out of his voice - now was hardly the time to burden either of them with any more than he inadvertently had done already - already - he stroked his thumb over the sharp line of Denis's cheekbone. "Shall I go and get him for you?" 

Did he want that? Much as he might indeed want Julie, Denis wasn't going to ask that he be fetched. Not just because with Denis too tired to mind the ship, Julie needed to, but more because (in that way that things became strangely clear/connected in the space between sleep and waking) Julie had to want to come to him, it was Julie's decision, Julie's move, if there was to be more between them than the comradeship, friendship, affection and comfortably working reliance they had now. And whatever else, Denis did not want to lose what they had, pushing for something Julie might never want himself. "No," Denis said, unreasonably certain that Methos didn't want to move any more than he did. He went on, sleep blurring his words, "He'll come when - if - he wants. Or when it's time to get up. Which won't be for a while." Denis let his head rest more fully in Methos' hand, enjoying the simple comfort of the touch. Hardly more than a breath, sleep claiming him again, he said, "Stay?" 

"All right." Methos tried not to be glad that Denis wanted him to stay, rather than to go get Julie - he wasn't sure yet that this wouldn't all vanish from beneath him when they made landfall, and wanted as much as he could have for as long as he could have it - but he was glad, in spite of himself. He sat still for a moment or two, watching as Denis fell back into sleep - and not just watching; he could feel the moment when consciousness was replaced by slumber - and finally stretched himself out on the narrow bunk next to Denis, wrapping one arm around him almost unconsciously. He had no intention of falling asleep himself, if only because he wasn't sure that doing so might not deepen the connection between them, and make it worse if and when separation did come. He had, however, underestimated the strength of his own fatigue, and the amount of energy he'd expended both in flight and in defense of the ship - not to mention the soporific effect of being temporarily protected from those who had been been hunting him when he'd ducked on board ship to hide. His last conscious thought was that whether or not this lasted, he was glad he'd found it.

* * *

_Sun-Treader_ was very quiet with both Denis and Adan asleep; Julie had looked in on them briefly after collecting another cup of caff and putting Adan's cup in the cleaning-slot. Seeing the two of them spooned back to front, Adan's arm curled protectively over Denis's waist, both sharp-boned faces still, Denis looking older and Adan much younger than they did awake, had tightened a band around Julie's heart, set a kernel of mixed feelings growing in his belly. He'd been avoiding thinking about Denis _that way_ for quite some time, Julie realized, and likely would have continued to indefinitely without Adan effectively forcing the issue. For all of Denis's cheerfully Delosian attitude toward casual sex (at least, Julie supposed it was Delosian; even after flying with Denis all these years, calling Delos their home port, Julie didn't consider he had more than a visitor's casual knowledge of the place,) he was quite careful of Julie's sensibilities. In fact, really thinking about it, Denis was generally careful about consent, even when that care was otherwise thoroughly disguised.

But Adan had made it needful to think about, and moreover, to do something about. Because Denis was too important to Julie to not. Even if it meant also dealing with something — someone — as catalytic as Adan. However, in the middle of an unexpectedly fraught run, with a deadline and an unknown number of possible hermetic complications trailing in Adan's wake, out here in this obscure but not unknown system was not the time for making long term decisions if they didn't have to. So. Get to Castax, offload the cargo and the special delivery, get business taken care of, then find a lodging where they could deal with things off the ship, away from delicate keels and temperamental harmoniums.

The transit across the dim system was as quiet as the ship, and Julie got a short catnap of his own, lying back in the second-pilot's couch on the bridge. The tone he had set to go off a little before reaching the point where they could start the ascent into purgatory drew him from a formless dream of unresolved but not uncomfortable closeness. Time for all of them to be attending to the work at hand.

Denis and Adan were still asleep when Julie went to wake them. He could have called down the inter-ship, letting the chime serve as a wake-up call, but that felt too distant somehow. Instead he knocked briefly on the cabin door and went in, light coming up softly as he entered. For a moment, he could almost perceive the hum of connection between all three of them, present but as with the dream, not quite resolved into harmony, much less stability. They were somehow very beautiful, still curled close together and relaxed in sleep. It seemed a shame to wake them, but needs must. "Denis?" Julie said in a consciously ordinary voice, "Adan? Purgatory approach coming up. Time to be moving."

The transition from sleep to wakefulness was almost always instantaneous for Methos, despite a longstanding habit of pretending otherwise. This time, though, it took him a second or two to pull himself from half-remembered dreams, and to orient himself. Finding that Julie was all the way in the room, and had been there for some moments, was slightly startling; ordinarily, he'd have woken the instant the door opened. It was probably due to the connection between the three of them; still, it was moderately disturbing. Nevertheless, he smiled at Julie as he sat up and stretched, extricating himself reluctantly from the small bunk and from Denis's warmth. He'd slept well, despite the brevity of the nap; better, in fact, than he had in some time. "Tell me there's caff ready?" he said plaintively, shaking off the last remnants of sleep as he stood up.

"Of course there is." Denis's words were somewhat muffled by the pillow as he turned over and stretched. Julie didn't forget things like that, and even if he didn't assume Methos would want caff first thing, he knew Denis did. Julie knew Denis. Julie was still in the room. With Methos, pulling his tunic on over rumpled leggings. With Denis half hard and fully exposed. He wouldn't be — he _was not_ — ashamed of that. Of what he and Methos had done. That he wanted Julie the same way. And Julie and certainly seen him naked before, but not, somehow, like this. Denis found he could not find it in him to pull on the air of blithe unconcern that was his usual mode in the face of things one might find embarrassing or over the line were one not Denis Balthasar, aware of Rusadir mores and Julie's sensibilities however often he chose to act otherwise. Instead Denis stilled, taking a breath that only fluttered a little in his belly, chin jerking up as he met Julie's eyes without any idea of what he would find there.

"There is," Julie said almost on top of Denis's words. He was relieved to hear Denis's alert response, and then unexpectedly taken aback at seeing him stretch like a cat, lithe and sensuous and more than just naked: downright sexual with peaked nipples dark against the pale, smooth skin of his chest, thin arrow of hair pulling Julie's attention down to the arch of his hips and the generous length slowly hardening in the valley that was the juncture between belly and thigh. Julie's own sex jumped in response. Suddenly Julie understood the expression 'well fucked.' This was how Denis was with a lover, with Adan. Color flamed in his face and he pulled his eyes away, up to safer territory. Seeing Denis tense into immobility, the curve of his mouth flatten and his face still, Julie felt a chill in his own veins, at war with the heat in his skin. The look in Denis's eyes was one Julie had never wanted to see; more naked and vulnerable than any amount of unclothed skin. Bad enough to glimpse it bent on a retreating back, or fixed on the middle distance of memory; to have it directed to him made his heart squeeze tight.

Dimly, Julie was aware that Adan had stilled too, was watching with silent intensity. It was the scene in the corridor in reverse, somehow. Denis had been (in his own, idiosyncratic way) the one being careful of Julie, of his sensibilities and sheltered upbringing, in this if nothing else. This was depths Julie had no idea of, that _he_ , Julian Chase Mago, was the one who could hurt Denis, hurt him terribly. That Julie's reaction and opinion mattered that much. That what he did, or said, or even thought in the next moments would shape where they all went next. He loved Denis; Hurting him was the last thing Julie wanted. 

As if the moment was a soap-bubble, Julie opened his hands, never breaking the gaze between them. He hoped his own face was transparent, somehow expressing what he had no words for, even if he could unlock the tightness in his throat to let them out. Feeling almost as if reality was suspended, he took the one step necessary to reach the bunk, and leaned down, fingers just brushing the soft threads of grey at Denis's temple, and kissed him.

Methos let out his breath silently, as relieved as he was satisfied. Julie had made, in his opinion, precisely the right move, and now he himself could stop worrying that he'd inadvertently damaged a relationship that was so clearly the central support in the lives of both men. Whether there would be room for him or not was at the moment unimportant, despite his hopes that there would be. He let himself watch for a few seconds longer, then turned to go, smiling to himself in a combination of contentment and mingled regret that was, he thought, best kept to himself.

The cabin was small enough, especially with three people in it, that any movement was noticeable. Kissing Denis was astonishing, and Julie would happily continued on indefinitely, especially as Denis was equally engaged and eager, but Julie had not forgotten where they were or what they were doing there. Adan turning to go caught his attention, and without entirely letting go of Denis (when had he cupped the back of Denis's head in his palm, and when had Denis gotten a fistful of Julie's tunic, tugging himself closer?) reached out to stop him. It didn't feel right that he should go, just yet. The chord wasn't resolved. 

"Don't go," Julie said, catching Adan's sleeve. "I, we, um…" He took a breath and tried to start again, feeling Denis grin against his cheek, and then squeeze his shoulder in a very speaking way before slithering out of the bunk. "You're part of this too. Whatever this is." Denis grinned at him, before giving him another encouraging nudge and bent to retrieve his shipsuit from the deck. Julie did not allow himself to be distracted by the very nice view. He noticed Adan's eyes make the same appreciative journey. "We're not going to get it all scored and tuned in the next half hour, not with a Road to fly and all." Julie couldn't tell if what he was trying to say was making sense or even getting through. Denis was in the fresher, the sonics a buzz in Julie's back teeth with the door still open. No barriers between any of them. Well, kissing had worked before. Why not again? Moving slowly enough not to startle, Julie pressed his lips to Adan's with firm purpose before drawing back and saying in a rush, "but now we know there's something to be tuned, all three of us." 

Methos smiled at Julie and leaned over to return the kiss, lingering just a little, not wanting to push too hard or too fast too quickly. "I'm looking forward to doing just that," he assured Julie, his voice pitched so that Denis could hear him as well. "At the moment, however, I should probably follow Denis's example and freshen up a little." More quietly, he added, "I told you it was worth the risk," before grinning at Julie and slipping out the door, feeling more than a little pleased with himself. Things wouldn't last, of course. Both Julie and Denis were mortal, after all, and eventually time itself would take them from him if he didn't lose them in some other way even sooner, but he planned to relish every minute he did have with them. He'd tried before, repeatedly, to stop caring so much about mortals, to keep from suffering the inevitable loss over and over again; to either stick with others of his kind or to isolate himself entirely. It never worked out very well.

* * *

After all the excitement of the last several Roads, The Dragon's Dance among Clouds was pleasantly uneventful. Denis threaded the stately path feeling happier and more energized than he had in a very long time. He knew that whatever it was that had been forged between the three of them was far from being settled, and there were bound to be downsides to it as well as the immediate advantages. (For one thing, flexible as Delos was on recognition of committed relationships, they still needed to find a woman who would agree to marry in, if Julie was to be eligible for citizenship, and get the increasingly dangerous situation with his papers resolved.) Denis was actually glad that Julie had not taken that kiss any further. Denis would have been hard-put to stop, and he had long imagined how he wanted their first time to go, little expecting or allowing himself to hope they would come about. A narrow bunk and a hurried grope on shipboard were not part of those plans, given an option. Denis wanted to give Julie all the time and attention he deserved. (Time that Denis had not had — he pushed those memories firmly away. This was less about him than it was about Julie.) Methos would understand, Denis realized, but there would be no leaving him out, either. Life was surely going to be no less exciting. Denis relished the challenge. 

But first, get down to Castax, report the pirates (without other detail, Denis decided. They had seen them and run. No need to even bring up the rest of it.) Deliver the cargo to the factor and the message to the Master of the Revels, and then find a lodging for the next week or so. Then they could spend some time for themselves. Denis was quite looking forward to that.

There was the last cloud of the Road, and the ancient, stylized gate with upturned ends. Denis steered for the space under the lintel and felt the usual rush of falling out of purgatory, somehow made the more clearly defined by the connection with Methos. Julie had stopped down the harmonium with barely a murmur from Denis, and when Denis slid down the ladder to the main bridge, Methos had set the boards ready for him. With a grin of thanks, he settled into the first couch and toggled on the communications array. Castax was clear on the screen, the lines of harmony and force mapped in the ficinan model, just as they should be. They were right in the shipping lane, close and perfect.

"Castax approach, this is DRV _Sun-Treader_ , with cargo for the Ripon and Westering Combine, requesting permission to dock, Chrysos mainport."

Castax approach answered promptly, and Denis focused on the needs of the moment. The rest would wait.

-Fin-

* * *


End file.
